Most Utahns admire and respect Spencer F. Eccles, the chairman and chief executive officer of First Security Corp. Many others candidly envy the man who heads the financial services company with $16 billion in assets. They would trade places with him in a heartbeat.
And why not? Eccles is rich, charismatic, powerful and was born into a family whose legacy of business leadership, entrepreneurism, philanthropy and civil service puts it among the most successful dynasties in the American West.All well and good. But there's a dark side to being the head guy, as Eccles made clear Wednesday during his keynote speech at the annual get-together at the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business known as the Spencer Fox Eccles Convocation.
Eccles held a packed house of students, alumni and guests enthralled in Mark Greene Hall as he traced the saga of the Eccles family and First Security Corp. from its roots - put down at the turn of the century by the dynasty founder, David Eccles - through the long and successful reign of Marriner S. Eccles and George S. Eccles, to his own taking of the scepter in 1982 when George Eccles died.
Utahns who have become bored with the endless stream of headlines in the 1990s touting the great strength of the state's economy and the parade of record earnings by First Security may recall it was a very different story for most of the 1980s.
As the state slid into a recession that seemed to last forever, First Security's profitability went down the tubes right along with it. Spence Eccles seemed to have become captain of the ship just as it had begun taking on water.
"George's timing for passing on was impeccable," Eccles quipped.
The low point came in March, 1986, when Forbes magazine published a scathing article on First Security titled "The Decline and Fall of the House of Eccles." The article praised Marriner and George, Spence's uncles, who had raised the bank up, and then declared, "A nephew now oversees its demise."
"We talked about this a lot at my house," Eccles deadpanned.
Eccles didn't know it then, but the strategic plans he had put into place during the first four years of his taking the helm - delegation of authority, remaking the corporate culture, focusing on customers - were just beginning to take hold as Forbes was writing his epitaph. And it didn't hurt that Utah was about to launch its own economic renaissance as well.
By 1992, Forbes had a very different story to tell its readers: The man who six years earlier had been overseeing First Security's demise had engineered record earnings in every year since the '86 article had been published.
Like President Harry Truman holding up the Chicago Tribune proclaiming "Dewey Defeats Truman," Spence Eccles had the last laugh.
But he's not doing any laurel resting. It's clear as the new millennium approaches that the financial services industry has become so volatile, competitive and rapidly changing that Marriner and George wouldn't recognize it. Remember Tracy-Collins, Continental and Walker banks? People thought they'd be around forever. Spence Eccles knows there are no guarantees that today's strategies will work tomorrow.
One thing's sure: David, Marriner and George Eccles were great men and even greater bankers, but they never had to face the kind of challenges that Spence Eccles has taken on during his 15 years at the helm.
Prior to his keynote speech, Eccles was lauded by interim University of Utah President Jerilyn S. McIntyre as the "quintessential Utah man," a reference to the university fight song that proclaims "Who am I sir? A Utah man am I!" Among his many services to the U., Eccles is currently treasurer of the university and chairman of its fund-raising Sesquicentennial Campaign.
McIntyre said Eccles' spirit, generosity and dedication to the university have been major factors in its success.
Particularly for the School of Business, added Dean John W. Seybolt. Prior to Eccles' speech, an oversized check for $15 million was unveiled, a replica of the one that Eccles' aunt, Emma Eccles Jones, a daughter of David Eccles, had bequeathed to the school in April 1991, just six months before her death at age 93.
This year marks the completion of funding the endowment that honors her father. Seybolt said the endowment was now worth some $21 million, its earnings funding a wide variety of programs and scholarships at the school.