Addison H. Reese papers

Addison Hardcastle Reese was born in Baltimore County, Md., on December 28, 1908 to Gordon Lipponcott and Edith Octavia Ford Reese. He attended Johns Hopkins University (1925-28), leaving after his junior year. Reese began his lifelong career in 1930 as a statistician for the Franck-Rosenburg Company, a private banking firm in Baltimore. Following Franck-Rosenburg's liquidation in 1931, he became a clerk in the Bank of Sparrows Point, Md. In 1932, Reese was appointed an assistant national bank examiner for the Office of Comptroller of the Currency in Washington, D.C. He was promoted to senior national bank examiner in 1936. Reese resigned in 1940 to become vice president of Nicodemus National Bank in Hagerstown, Md. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Air Force, attaining the rank of major. After the war, he returned to Nicodemus, leaving in 1947 to become president and chair of County Trust Company in Baltimore. Reese came to Charlotte in 1951 as executive vice president of American Trust Company, which, through a series of mergers, became North Carolina National Bank (NCNB) in 1960. He became president and chief executive officer of NCNB in 1968 and retired in 1973. Reese also served on the board of the Federal Reserve City Bankers (1965) and as a director of the International Monetary Conference. Reese was named to the Board of Advisors of the Charlotte Community College System in 1957 and was later elected to its Board of Trustees. He served as chair of the Charlotte College Site Committee in 1958. In 1963, Reese was appointed vice chair of the Charlotte College Board of Trustees, serving as chair (1964-65) following J. Murrey Atkins's death. He was named to the board of trustees of The University of North Carolina in 1965 and of UNC Charlotte in 1968, serving as the latter's chair, 1972-77. During 1970-71, Reese served as a member of the North Carolina Legislative Study Commission on Student Financial Aid. He also served as a member of the UNCC Foundation (1971-72, 1975-76). Reese received one of UNCC's first two honorary degrees in 1968 and the school's administration building is named for him. The North Carolina Citizens Committee bestowed its 1974 Distinguished Citizenship Award upon him. In 1936, Reese married Gertrude Rasin Craig of Baltimore. They had no children. He died in Charlotte on September 1, 1977 and was buried in Baltimore.