BankAmerica Shuffles Deck For Merged Company's Board

BankAmerica Corp. named its board of directors this week, taking 11 members from NationsBank Corp. and nine from the old BankAmerica of San Francisco.

Staying true to NationsBank's geographical roots, half of the board hails from the Carolinas and Georgia. The BankAmerica group includes former chairmen Richard Rosenberg and David Coulter.

Mr. Coulter is president of the merged company, with NationsBank's Hugh L. McColl Jr. serving as chairman and chief executive officer.

The racial diversity of the board was closely watched by community and fair-lending activists. Four directors, or 20%, are minorities. That is better than the 11.7% among the "50 best companies for Asians, blacks, and Hispanics" in a recent Fortune magazine survey.

Some said BankAmerica did not go far enough. Robert Gnaizda, general counsel of the Greenlining Institute, said advocacy groups are calling on corporate boards to move toward one-third minority representation, but he said, "We are happy that they do have a representation from each of the major minority groups."

These board members are Solomon Trujillo, CEO of U S West Communications Group, a BankAmerica director since 1996; Walter Massey, president of Morehouse College, a BankAmerica director since 1993; Shirley Young, vice president of General Motors Corp., who joined BankAmerica's board last April; and Ronald Townsend, a Florida communications consultant and NationsBank director since 1993.

Also carried over from the NationsBank board, led by Mr. McColl, were Meredith Spangler, chairwoman of the C.D. Spangler Foundation; Jackie Ward, CEO of Computer Generation Inc.; Virgil Williams, CEO of Williams Group International Inc.; Paul Fulton, CEO of Bassett Furniture Industries; C. Ray Holman, CEO of Mallinckrodt Inc.; W.W. "Hootie" Johnson, former CEO of Bankers Trust of South Carolina; O. Temple Sloan Jr., CEO of General Parts Inc.; Charles W. Coker, CEO of Sonoco Products Co.; and Alan T. Dickson, chairman of Ruddick Corp.

From the old BankAmerica, in addition to those already mentioned, are Timm Crull, former CEO of Nestle USA Inc.; Kathleen Feldstein, president of Economics Studies Inc.; Donald Guinn, former CEO of Pacific Telesis Group; and Michael Spence, dean of the Stanford University business school.

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