ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 23, 1996 TAG: 9606210007
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
WARNER Dalhouse enjoyed a high community profile in a long career with the former Dominion Bankshares Corp., but fell nearly silent for the past three years as chairman of Dominion's successor, First Union National Bank of Virginia.
He will carry some of that reticence with him into retirement. Dalhouse will remain active in the community, but noted he no longer will "have a corporate platform from which to speak."
Dalhouse, who turned 62 on June 4, will work his last day Friday. Stepping down as chairman this year, he said, was part of a 1992 agreement with Charlotte, N.C.-based First Union when it agreed to acquire Dominion.
"I'm very ready for it," Dalhouse said, because he made his psychological turnaround 18 to 20 months ago. After long thought, weighing the pros and cons, he decided it was mostly positive.
His wife, Barbara, said she is also looking forward to it. If he gets restless in retirement, she joked, she will make him a job jar. But meanwhile, she said, she is looking forward to a less scheduled and more spontaneous life.
In his Dominion days, Dalhouse said, "I was into a lot," referring to numerous community activities and a constant flow of opinions about events in the valley. He conceded that few witty observations - or pointed barbs - have come from him since the bank merger became effective in March 1993.
"Who would have thought it?" Dalhouse said of his post-merger silence.
In a 44-year career with a single company, he built Dominion into a bank with $12 billion in assets and offices in four states. Then it began to experience operating losses, the result of a weak economy early in the decade, the collapse of the commercial real estate market in Northern Virginia where Dominion and other Virginia banks had invested heavily and some say some faulty management decisions.
Ultimately the board of a weakened Dominion sold to First Union Corp., and it remains the dominant bank and a major employer in the Roanoke Valley and Western Virginia.
As he readies himself to leave the workplace, Dalhouse said he is most proud of creating the child care center for the company's employees.
His deepest regret is that "there were people who felt I somehow failed to meet my responsibilities when we sold Dominion to First Union." Some people blamed him for that sale, although, he said, it was "clearly in the best interest of the stockholders."
At the time Dominion stock was worth $19 a share and had not paid dividends for six quarters. Today, he said, First Union stock is selling at about $60 a share with shareholders earning $2.32 a year per share in dividends.
The events leading up to the sale of Dominion to First Union, including a series of financial losses, were "clearly a low point, but the sale was the right thing to do."
He would do it again, he said, especially if the buyer was First Union.
First Union has 2,200 employees in the Roanoke Valley, compared with an all-time high of 1,550 for Dominion, although that number fell just before the merger.The nation's sixth-largest bank, First Union has 2,000 branches and 44,000 employees in 12 states and the District of Columbia.
Dalhouse said the community lost some high-paying jobs in the merger, but the total payroll is higher. First Union estimates its Roanoke Valley payroll at more than $40 million a year based on an average of $18,000 per job.
"First Union will continue to grow here," Dalhouse said, because worker production is good and morale is high. First Union, he said, is "growing rapidly and changing constantly," but it will keep the same number of jobs here and perhaps add even more. He called it "a world-class bank" with a wide range of products and broad resources.
Another major disappointment for Dalhouse was that he - and all the other people who tried along with him - were never able to reduce the number of governments in the valley. Four governments in a valley of 220,000 people is extravagant and ineffective, he said.
Before government consolidation can take place, Dalhouse said, cities and suburbs must become more tolerant of one another's problems, realizing they are dependent on each other.
Now, as a resident of Franklin County, he said he would no longer have credibility in Roanoke Valley politics if the issue arises again. But, he said, "I would never be disinterested."
'A whole lot of time'
When Dalhouse walks out of his office on the 15th floor of the First Union Building, he won't lack things to do.
He will remain on the board of First Union's Virginia bank, which governs the bank's operations in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., although the post of chairman will be picked up by President Ben Jenkins. Jenkins, appointed by First Union after the merger, has controlled day-to-day operations of the bank since 1993.
Dalhouse also became chairman this year of Roanoke's Shenandoah Life Insurance Co., where he has served for five years. And he heads the capital campaign to raise $2.5 million for Planned Parenthood of the Roanoke Valley.
He remains on the board of Center in the Square, of which he was a founder in the late 1970s, and he's a director of Carilion Health System, the Roanoke-based hospital and health services company. He has a year remaining of his appointment to Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in commerce in 1956.
Of special importance to Dalhouse is the Jefferson Center. As a founder and board member he hopes to assist with a $2.5 million capital campaign to restore the former Jefferson High School auditorium as a setting for performances by the Roanoke Symphony, the Roanoke Choral Society and other groups.
Dalhouse, who has supported former Gov. Douglas Wilder and other candidates, is chairman of Lt. Gov. Don Beyer's regional fund-raising committee for his likely campaign for governor.
Although Dalhouse will never run for office himself, he will help raise funds for people he believes in. He said he has no litmus test for candidates he supports. "I'm very interested in financially conservative candidates who are moderate on social issues," Dalhouse said. In the last few years, he added, that means he's supported primarily Democrats because of their positions on social issues. In the last Roanoke City Council race, he gave some support to both Democrat Carroll Swain and Republican Alvin Nash.
Not all of his interests are civic.
"One of my problems in life has been that I was interested in so many things it made it difficult to focus on the ones I should be paying attention to," Dalhouse said.
In the first half of his life, he had no money, Dalhouse observed. In the second half, he had no time. Now that he has "a little bit of money and a whole lot of time," he will get to some interests that he has neglected. He declined to discuss his finances, and there is no public record of his current pay or pension. The latest public record, Dominion's 1992 proxy statement to shareholders, listed his 1991 cash compensation at $559,300.
He and his wife, Barbara, hope to have more time for traveling than in the past. He said he will visit places around the world "as much as I can afford."
Dalhouse refers to himself as a student of the European Theater of World War II - not the battles, but the political and social aspects of the conflict. He wants to know why things happened and their impact. "I will do some additional studying on that."
U.S. involvement in that war started when he was 7 years old, he recalled. Each Saturday morning, his mother sent him on the Rugby bus to Jefferson Street and Salem Avenue to pick up a weekly issue of Life magazine, which Milan Brothers set aside for her.
The young Dalhouse would dash across the street for the magazine and catch the same bus home, thus saving the 7-cent second fare home. He would read Life on the way home, fascinated by its photos and stories of the war.
Later, Dalhouse said, he wondered how the most civilized, educated and productive people in Europe could fall under the sway of the Nazi regime. If it could happen to the Germans, Dalhouse said, he feared it might happen to any nation that came under the control of "crazies."
Also in retirement, he said, "I'd like to have enough time to really read some Shakespeare." His wife gave him the Bard's complete works a couple of years ago, and "I've been gazing longingly at it."
He thanks his Jefferson High School English teacher, Sully Hayward, for teaching the son of a Norfolk and Western Railway electrician that the plays, which at first seemed stilted, were actually alive and exciting. Hayward, Dalhouse said, taught him "the magic of language."
Barbara Dalhouse said she gave her husband the Shakespeare set because "Warner has always been a very literate person. He loves to write and loves to read. It's just a natural fit."
'A good run'
Having sold their condominium in Roanoke County in January 1994, the Dalhouses are committed to living at Stony Point on Smith Mountain Lake.
"It's like having your own little resort," Dalhouse said of his house on three wooded acres.
He's actually commuted from there most days during the past nine years. He looked forward to the 45-minute trip to downtown, the drive through the country - "it really is pretty" - listening to public radio and planning his day.
Dalhouse runs 20 to 25 miles a week, mostly outdoors, but when there's bad weather, on the treadmill at home, where he also keeps other exercise equipment. A veteran of the 1983 New York Marathon, Dalhouse may try to run more because it's "one of the most exhilarating experiences of life."
Retirement will be a dramatic change for Dalhouse. He has been working for 50 years, getting his first job at the age of 12 delivering the afternoon paper on a route where the Roanoke Civic Center and Magic City Motor Corp. now stand. He rode a bike there every day from the Rugby neighborhood where he grew up.
He gave up that endeavor at 17, in March of 1952, to take a job as a runner (or messenger) for First National Exchange Bank, the predecessor of Dominion Bankshares. "Actually I was more of a walker."
A bank at the corner of Jefferson and Campbell has given him a wage and a W-2 form for 44 consecutive years.
As a student at Roanoke's former Jefferson High School and for two years at Roanoke College, he picked up the bank's mail by 6:30 a.m., sorted and distributed it to "the big shots" and got to class by 9. After school, he picked up the bank's outgoing mail and took it to the post office.
Francis Cocke, chairman of First National, got Dalhouse a $1,000 scholarship from the Rotary Club to attend the University of Virginia for his final two years. He supported himself by working in a pet shop, where he fed the monkeys at 5:30 a.m., and at the university's library. He worked for the bank during summers and holidays.
In March 1956, Cocke wrote to offer Dalhouse a full-time job after graduation. It was his first job offer, and Dalhouse took it. He's been at the bank ever since.
His first job, as a trainee, was as the bank's collection man. He spent his days chasing down delinquent installment loans and repossessing foreclosed property.
He was impressed at that age by a trio of three community leaders: Francis Cocke, J.B. Fishburn, publisher of the newspapers, and E.H. Ould, who also became the bank's board chairman.
Fishburn gave the city most of its valuable parks, Dalhouse recalled, and Ould helped to create the Public Library Board of which Dalhouse is the current chairman. Cocke was involved in many community activities.
Cocke and Ould, he said, taught him that community leadership would be to the bank's benefit. "I still believe that's true."
Dalhouse rose to become the bank's chief executive officer in 1981 at the age of 47, among the youngest to get that post for a bank of that size. He said he was also one of only a few bankers to get the post with a background in marketing instead of in credit administration.
Despite his own career success, Dalhouse would not advise a young person to follow such a course. Spending 44 years at a bank in today's world would be unwise, he said.
The business of finance has become too sophisticated and complex for a person to work for only one institution, he explained. Rapid change is an integral part of that world.
It's important for a young person to gain perspective and sophistication by working for a variety of companies, Dalhouse said. He believes people in business, especially the finance business, will work for banks and brokerages and other types of companies.
Over a career spanning 44 years, he said, people will hold four or five different types of jobs with different companies.
In his own case, Dalhouse said, he was "in the right place at the right time." Today, he said, young people need to develop a career strategy.
One thing banks do offer is "a tradition of service." Bank officers are supposed to become involved in community affairs.
Encouraged by Cocke and other mentors, a younger Dalhouse joined the Jaycees, the Cosmopolitan Club and the Chamber of Commerce. He served as president of the latter in the mid-1970s.
His contributions continued over the years, especially when it came to money-raising projects.
He helped collect the $7 million that was the private share of the $15 million cost of building the Center in the Square and served as its chairman until two years ago. He's still on the board.
He's proud that he created the Roanoke Valley Business Council, which meets at least quarterly to discuss events of common interest.
The council is composed of chief executive officers of the 25 largest employers in the valley and another 25 CEOs of local businesses with a tradition of community involvement. The council's most recent work was done on behalf of the "smart" road between the Roanoke and New River valleys and of the regional partnership.
There were the usual boards such as the Roanoke Symphony and United Way, but Dalhouse was also involved in raising money for the Jefferson Center.
Active in politics, he was a creator of Roanoke Forward, a business-oriented group that in one election in the late 1970s put all seven council members in their chairs. That council, Dalhouse recalled, implemented Design 79 which, in turn, revived the Roanoke City Market.
Without the revival of the market, he said, Roanoke would never have seen construction of Center in the Square, First Union Tower or the Norfolk Southern Building.
"I've had a good run. It's been exhilarating," Dalhouse said. "It's been challenging and, from time to time, pretty stressful. But it's been rewarding."
LENGTH: Long : 249 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff One benefit Warner Dalhouse expectsby CNBfrom his retirement is a chance to spend more time with his wife,
Barbara, at their Smith Mountain Lake home. Color.