Nice guys do not always finish last.
Consider John Kley, who started at the bottom at County Trust Co. in New York's Westchester County and retired from Bank of New York as a top executive after a multidecade career.
When I said he started at the bottom, I meant it. On his first day at work in Tarrytown, N.Y, a dog did what dogs do on the steps of the bank. Doc Hughes, the CEO, yelled, "Clean that up!" The order went down the line until it reached the lowest person in the ranks. That was Kley's initiation into banking.
Like so many bankers of his day, Kley never had a chance to go to college. When asked his educational background, he always used to respond, "I went to Trenton School of Taxidermy, night division."
Yet Kley became the president of County Trust, the largest bank in the richest county in New York State, while he was in his 30s, and he remained a top officer when the bank was sold to Bank of New York
He attributed his success to always being there for customers - for example, by sitting on the dais at thousands of dinners. He knew that his competitors, the New York money-center banks, would not have their CEOs there.
Two more things I should tell you about John.
First, he headed the committee of the ABA that developed MICR. At that time there were a number of schemes being developed to automate check clearance, so that checks would no longer would have to be hand-sorted.
The sorting was not only a slow and inaccurate process, but in addition, as one banker put it to me, "Young girls would come into work in sorting and recording checks for several years before they got married, and the work was so exacting it would kill their eyesight making them need glasses for the rest of their lives."
Several solutions were tried, including one that Citibank developed: to place every single check into a plastic envelope for proof and transit. But Kley's committee developed the electronic numbers that are still used today.
But though John was extremely proud of that achievement, he had another that I am sure he was even more proud of. At age 55 he finished work at Westchester Community College and earned a degree, something he had always told me that he really wanted.
Another memorable acquaintance from my nearly half-century of teaching and writing about banking was the top officer of Chemical Bank many years ago. I was supposed to interview him for an article to be published at the front of the annual report.
The PR man told me, "Your appointment with Don Platten is for 3 o'clock. Be here at 1, so you won't keep him waiting."
As luck would have it, I had five minutes alone with Platten without any tape recorder or PR man in the room, and this is what he said:
"Paul, this bank has been here since 1812. My only job is to make sure it is still here when I am gone."
Immediately I loved him. Chemical's success obviously reflected Don Platten's concern.
I only wish some other top bankers had the same humility.
