Joseph M. Grant

Joseph "Jody" Grant was born in 1938 in San Antonio, Texas. His father was a brilliant lawyer whose clients were the wealthiest oilmen of the time. 'Even though it was shortly after the Great Depression when I was born, we were a moderately well-to-do family,' he says. 'But during my childhood, my father began to battle a drinking problem, which he could never conquer.'

With each year, the alcoholism that gripped Grant's father became worse and worse. Ultimately, his father was forced to leave the law practice in which he was a partner because he couldn't control his drinking addiction. He started a private practice that soon failed. 'My father's condition saddened and depressed me, and I was afraid to invite friends to my house because of his erratic behavior,' Grant says. 'He would hide bottles around the house, and that became a dilemma for me. Should I tell my mother he was drinking when she wasn't aware, or should I protect my father and not tell her' Eventually, I decided to do the right thing and tell my mother even though that was very difficult for me.'

Once it became clear that Grant's father would be unable to provide for the family, his mother went to work. 'We had lost nearly everything at that point,' he says. 'But my mother was a remarkable woman. She was such a positive person and believed that if you set a goal and worked toward it, then you could achieve almost anything. 'Do the best you can today' was her creed. To support the family, she ran a private luncheon and dinner club in San Antonio, and she did it very well. We lived in the club, so we had meals, a roof over our heads, and her income. We were able to survive.'

Looking for a positive outlet for her 14-year-old son, Grant's mother encouraged him to become a competitive swimmer. The following winter, he set a state high school record in the 200-yard freestyle. A short time later, he set two national records. 'I was completely absorbed by swimming,' he says. 'I wanted to establish my own identity. My father's failures produced in me a burning desire to redeem the family name and to demonstrate that I had the inner strength and determination to succeed where my father had failed. I think swimming saved my life.'

Swimming provided Grant not only an escape from his dysfunctional home life, but also a way for him to go to college. 'I came from an educated family and college was expected, but I had no idea how we would pay for it,' he says. 'As a sophomore in high school, my swimming times were faster than most of the college guys. I knew that if I continued to improve, I would receive a scholarship. That was very reassuring for me.'

In high school, Grant was named to the All-America team during his junior and senior years. Upon graduation, he accepted a full swimming scholarship to Southern Methodist University. While there, he won four individual Southwest Conference championships, was named to the collegiate All-America team, and in 1959 was ranked among the world's top 10 swimmers in the 1,500-meter freestyle.

During his junior year in college, he met his future wife, Sheila. 'That got me to refocus my attention on something other than swimming,' he says. 'I decided to enter the business school, which meant I had to go to summer school and take two semesters of 18 hours each to graduate on time. A finance professor brought that subject to life for me, and I realized I wanted to make banking my career.'

After graduating from SMU with a finance degree, Grant earned an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. He worked his way through school as the assistant swimming coach, married Sheila. In 1961, he took a job at Citibank's executive training program in New York. Even though Grant was successful there, he felt disadvantaged competing against fellow trainees who were from elite Eastern families and who had attended Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. After five years climbing the corporate ladder, he decided to return to Austin to enter UT's three-year doctoral program. He taught at the undergraduate level and eventually won a fellowship that paid for the program's final two years.

Grant finished his doctoral program and accepted a job as chief economist for Texas Commerce Bank in Houston. No other Houston banks had economists at the time, which gave him a unique platform. Almost immediately, the oil crisis of the early 1970s thrust Grant onto the national scene. He became an energy expert and was quoted widely in the national press. As a result, the American Bankers Association invited him to join ABA's Economic Advisory Committee. While at Texas Commerce, Grant led efforts to convert it into a bank holding company. He executed its expansion plan, which ultimately produced the 25th largest banking company in the country and the predecessor to JP Morgan Chase & Co. in Texas.

In 1976, Grant was asked to join the Young Presidents' Organization, going on to join YPO's international board of directors and serve as its international president in 1987'88. His postdoctoral career up until then seemed perfect, and at 46, he was positioned to do almost anything he desired. However, he could not have imagined what fate had in store for him.

The same day that Grant was elected chairman and CEO of Texas American Bancshares, the company announced its first quarterly loss since its founding in 1873. 'It was like being handed the wheel of the Titanic just as it hit the iceberg,' says Grant.

The Texas economy was reeling from a decline in oil prices from $30 per barrel at the end of 1985 to $9.75 per barrel in April 1986. Grant's company was in the vortex of the 'perfect storm' of events. During the 1980s, the Texas oil and gas industry collapsed, the savings and loan organizations had been swept by deregulation followed by loose lending practices and fraud, and the country's real estate was in a depression. Grant worked tirelessly for three years to save his bank, but the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took it over in 1989. With new owners, there was no place for him. He says of this devastating time in his life, 'I lost not only the bank, but I believed I had lost my career and future, which I had so carefully planned and managed. My entire net worth was invested in the company, which was now worthless. It was an unimaginable loss for me and my family.'

The Grants sold their house, using the proceeds to pay their debts. Grant soon became the chief financial officer at Electronic Data Systems (EDS), the world's largest information technology service company. He was one of two executives to lead the separation of EDS from its parent, General Motors'a process that took four years. In the end, it ranked as Wall Street's fourth largest transaction ever, netting GM $23 billion in 1996. That same year, Grant published his book titled The Great Texas Banking Crash: An Insider's Account. He came to believe that there was a market for a new middle market bank in Texas to replace those that had been lost. He began outlining a new banking model. In December 1998'with financial and technical backing from EDS'Grant opened Texas Capital Bank with the largest initial capitalization in U.S. history. The bank met with immediate success, and in 2001, American Banker'a prestigious daily newspaper'named him Community Banker of the Year. The following year, Ernst & Young named him Entrepreneur of the Year.

When asked to define success, Grant says, 'I don't measure success by the money you make; I measure it by what you do. I've never seen a tombstone that states a man's net worth. I would like mine to simply say, 'Here lies a good man'a man who made a difference.' The things I think are important are giving back to your community, being true to yourself and the people around you, and always being fair and honest.'

When offering advice to young people, he harkens back to something his grandfather told him when he was eight, which was, 'Do the best you can today, and tomorrow will take care of itself.' Grant says, 'I still think that's good advice. Of course, I tell all young people it's important to get a college education. It's essential not only for their future well-being, but also for the well-being of the country.'

Drawing on the success of Texas Capital, Grant became its chairman emeritus and launched BankCap Partners, a private equity firm he incubated within Texas Capital to replicate the bank's model in other major U.S. markets. BankCap has been the catalyst for Richmond's Xenith Bank, Pittsburgh's Tri-State Capital Bank, and Atlanta's Atlantic Capital Bank, which has supplanted Texas Capital as the largest startup in U.S. history.

Grant has served as chairman of Communities Foundation of Texas and Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation, which in 2005 built a $105 million, five-acre park'later known as Klyde Warren Park'over a major freeway in downtown Dallas. He also serves on the boards of MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, UT-Austin's College of Business Administration, and Dallas County Community College. Grant has served on the boards of trustees of SMU and Texas Christian University, as well as on those of numerous public companies.