Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 7, 1994 TAG: 9405100107
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
You might expect it. Merritt, who served as Dominion Bank's, then First Union National Bank's, president in Blacksburg for 10 years, saw the only career he'd ever had evaporate when he turned in his keys to the bank Sunday. First Union had given him his walking papers a month earlier.
Maybe Merritt, who began his career with the bank as a management trainee in 1970, would have to cut costs himself. Sell the car, move to where the jobs are, that sort of thing.
Well, he's selling the car, but he's got no plans to move.
Come May 16, Merritt starts work as director of development for intercollegiate athletics at Virginia Tech.
"I really campaigned hard for this job," said Merritt, who serves as chairman of the Blacksburg-VPI Sanitation Authority and is a past president of the Blacksburg Sports Club. He also serves as treasurer of the Montgomery Regional Economic Development Commission and until last year, had been involved in the United Way.
Merritt, who graduated from Tech a year after the one - 1967 - that's on his hefty class ring, was captain of Tech's tennis team for a year, and is a regular tennis partner of Tech President Paul Torgersen. He's been a longtime Hokie Club member and a Hokie representative for five years, soliciting donations for the school. The experience - and enthusiasm - will serve him well.
"We are extremely fortunate to have someone with Lu Merritt's extensive business and management experience," said David Braine, director of Tech athletics, in a news release. "He not only brings with him an appreciation of the athletic tradition here at Virginia Tech, but he also understands just how important a quality, financially sound athletic program is to the life of this university."
"I know I can go out and tell Virginia Tech's story," Merritt said.
And therein lies the reason for selling the car. Merritt figures he'll be on the road talking to prospective supporters of the athletic program, and he wants something larger, with four doors.
"It runs great and I've never had any problem with it," he said. One thing you can't have, though: his license plate that reads, "Hokie 68."
It notes where his heart is.
"I very much wanted to stay in the New River Valley," he said.
That he will is good news to a lot of the people - and organizations - he's come in contact with over the years.
"We're very pleased, yes, sir," said Don Moore, director of the development commission on which Merritt is treasurer. "He's a very capable person. He's also a very positive person," and that helps when it comes to Merritt's role on the industry attraction committee.
Merritt will remain on the commission because he represents the Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce, not the bank. Merritt asked if the commission would rather have a banker in the treasurer's role. He was asked to stay.
Those who know him, whether through friendship or work, call him a strong, enthusiastic leader, an affable person who doesn't condescend, someone with a great sense of humor.
"He treats everybody with respect [and] he's a very caring person, willing to devote a lot of time," said Kymn Davidson-Hamley, director of the United Way of Montgomery County. Merritt served as the chapter's campaign chairman in 1992.
Merritt had worked with the United Way for more than 20 years, starting in Roanoke when the bank required it. But after some time, "you see the need, and it just gets in your blood," he said.
"We all hoped he would stay in the community," said Harvey Shephard, director of the chamber.
Souvlaki owner Chris Kappas, who knew Merritt when he was a student, said he was stunned when he heard his friend's job had been abolished. "I can't say enough for him. I think it's First Union's loss."
But the bank's loss, he and others say, is Tech's gain.
Merritt always found time to talk, and never put on any kind of rich-man, banker's airs. "If he ever had it, he kept it well hidden. I just know him as Lu Merritt," Kappas said. They'd talk little of banking. "It was always about Tech athletics, and how we're going to do next year."
"I guess if ever there was a job that had Lu Merritt's name on it, he's in it," said Ed Whitmore, who now works at Tech after experiencing his own career demise when First Union let him go last summer.
Merritt had survived the first round of First Union's cuts. But over the past year, First Union closed three of the six branches he oversaw, and Merritt said, "I knew something was going to happen; I just didn't know what."
Doug Jones was one of the first to learn of Merritt's dismissal. Controller for Wade's Supermarkets, he worked for years with Merritt, who handled the chain's accounts.
Last March, the two were to have lunch and work up a loan proposal, when Merritt called and said his boss was coming up from Roanoke and could he catch up with Jones in a few hours?
Merritt was running late when he came by. "I said, 'you didn't get fired did you?' I was joking," Jones said. A little later, Merritt said, "'I gotta tell you. I did get fired.'
"I felt like a jerk," Jones said. But, "never did he say anything bad about First Union."
"I don't think I've been treated unfairly," Merritt said. "I think [the bank's] just in that awkward stage" of restructuring.
"We'll miss him, for sure," said Lenore Linkous, manager of the North Main Street First Union branch where he worked. But of Merritt's new job, she said, "he's perfect for the job and the job's perfect for him."
by CNB