by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Wachovia Chief Executive Officer Ken Thompson still misses the sights and sounds of Jacksonville but he’s glad that the smell is gone.
Thompson’s keynote address to the quarterly Cornerstone Luncheon at the Hyatt downtown Monday presented an opportunity to reminisce on 10 years spent in Jacksonville working for First Union Bank prior to its merger with Wachovia.
After helping orchestrate that union, Thompson quickly rose to the top at Wachovia. In a 30-year career in the banking industry, Thompson has taken on a number of management roles, heading up Wachovia’s corporate investment, its human resources and its entire Georgia operation before ascending to the bank’s top job. But he still ranks his decade in Jacksonville as “a career highlight.”
Thompson said he still returns “as often as possible” to his house in Ponte Vedra. It’s Jacksonville’s natural advantages that keep Thompson coming back. And it’s the warm weather, swaying palm trees and, especially, the fresh ocean air that’s moving Jacksonville up the list for corporate relocations, said Thompson.
That fresh air might be the best indicator that Jacksonville has made the transition from an industrial town to a service-oriented economy where a company like Wachovia can thrive, said Thompson. He remembers when the smell of paper mills still hung over the city.
“The defining characteristic of Jacksonville used to be the smell,” said Thompson. “Now residents and visitors breathe fresh sea air and they don’t remember the smell we old-timers are referring to.”
Those fresh sea breezes have carried plenty of jobs to Jacksonville since Thompson left in 1995. He remembers when the city wouldn’t have even been an afterthought for a relocating Fortune 500 company. Now, Jacksonville is a fixture on the short list. Companies like Fidelity have given the city blue-chip cachet, Thompson said. That growth is the reason that Thompson, running a company with a national presence, refers to Jacksonville as “one of our key markets.”
“It’s a big market, it’s a fast-growing market and it’s going to continue to grow,” said Thompson.
From Wachovia’s corporate offices in Charlotte, Thompson has a different perspective on that growth than the locals.
“Because I don’t see the progress every day, I don’t see your progress incrementally, I see it in leaps and bounds,” said Thompson.
In addition to Jacksonville’s natural advantages, the city’s relatively low cost of living and the teamwork between the public and private sectors have been key drivers of local growth, he said.