Ralph Jensby VOSS

VOSS, MADSEN, CHRISTENSEN

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 1/17/2012 at 21:27:00

August 11, 1910 --- January 20, 2002

Ralph Voss, 91; Bank Executive

Ralph J. Voss, former president, chief executive and board chairman of Western Bancorporation, the holding company for United California Bank and forerunner of First Interstate Bancorp, has died. He was 91. Voss died Jan. 20 in his sleep at the assisted living center in Portland, Ore., where he resided.

A banker for his entire career, Voss so personified the role that many said they would know his occupation even without his trademark pinstripe suit and gray silk tie.

"I can't think of any other job I'd want," he once told the Oregon Journal. In his more than four decades in the industry, Voss saw major changes in banking that presaged multiple mergers, and after his retirement in 1978 watched many of the bank names he had served disappear. Western Bancorporation itself, holding company for United California Bank and some dozen smaller banks throughout the Western states, adopted the name First Interstate Bancorp in 1981, with United California becoming First Interstate Bank. The whole lot was taken over by Wells Fargo in 1996. Wells Fargo in turn was gobbled up by Norwest, although the historic Wells Fargo name remains.

Born Ralph Jensby Voss on Aug. 11, 1910, in Eagle Grove, Iowa, Voss earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota and began his career with Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Co. (now Bank of America) in Chicago in 1934. He served in the Army throughout World War II, rising from second lieutenant to lieutenant colonel. He was stationed in England, Africa, Italy, France and Germany, and earned a Bronze Star for his organizational efforts in Germany. Voss moved to Los Angeles in 1946 to join California Bank (later United California Bank) and by the time he left in 1960 had risen to senior vice president. For the next 12 years, Voss served as president of the First National Bank of Oregon, another of Western Bancorporation's units, and supervised the building of one of Portland's first skyscrapers as the bank's headquarters. That bank evolved into First Interstate Bank of Oregon and more recently Wells Fargo.

During his Portland tenure, Voss served as a director and fund-raiser for Lewis and Clark College and was on boards of several organizations, including the Oregon Symphony, Boy Scouts and Portland Chamber of Commerce. He was a director of the Portland Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank and later of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Returning to Los Angeles in 1972 as Western's president, Voss helped expand and modernize the holding company through creation of the Western Bancorporation Mortgage Co. in 1974 and the Western Bancorporation Data Processing Co. in 1975.

Los Angeles Times - CA
January 28, 2002

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Towering Portland, Ore., Bank Figure Dies at 91.

Jan. 22--Ralph J. Voss, the man behind Portland's first big bank tower and a titan in Oregon banking, died Sunday at his Portland assisted living center. He was 91. In 1960, Voss became president and chief executive officer of First National Bank of Oregon, now Wells Fargo Bank, then went on to head its holding company in Los Angeles, Western Bancorporation, in 1972. At the time, it was the sixth-largest banking organization in the world. But in looking back at his long banking career, it was his years at the helm of Oregon's First National that made him most proud, said his son, Donald.

The bank grew and prospered under his father's leadership, Donald Voss said, but it always gave back to the community. "He always felt that the bank had a larger obligation than to serve its shareholders," Donald Voss said. As a result, his father, an Iowan, was deeply involved in the fabric of his adopted city, Portland. He served as a director and fund-raiser for numerous civic organizations, including United Good Neighbors, Salvation Army, Oregon Symphony, Multnomah County Library, Western Forestry Center, Boy Scouts, Oregon Historical Society, Lewis & Clark College, St. Vincent's Hospital Foundation and Good Samaritan Hospital.

In addition to the spirit of the bank, he also took great pride in its bricks and mortar. Voss headed the bank during the time it built and moved into its tower headquarters at 1300 S.W. Fifth Ave. in downtown Portland. "He thought that building made an important statement about Portland," said Donald Voss. "He felt it was his gift to the city."

Over the years, some have criticized the bank's height and design, but Voss was always quick to defend it. In 1996, he wrote a letter to the editor of The Oregonian correcting a story about the dedication of the tower building with Gov. Tom McCall. Contrary to what was reported, Voss wrote, McCall said at the time that "every city should have a building like this to prove it is a city -- but one is enough." "I built the First Interstate Bank Tower when I was chief executive of the bank," Voss wrote. "I was, and continue to be, very proud of the building."

When he moved into town from his Dunthorpe home, in fact, he bought a condominium in the KOIN Tower -- with a window view direct to his beloved tower, recalls Rudie Wilhelm. Wilhelm knew Voss for more than 40 years. Wilhelm, of Wilhelm Trucking and Warehousing, was on the bank's board of directors and played in Voss' golf foursome at Waverley Country Club. Wilhelm recalled Voss as "the essence of a banker, very serious, but he had a sense of humor, too. He had a lot of jokes about Iowa."

Voss was born Aug. 11, 1910, in Rockwell City, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1934 and began his banking career that year at the Continental Illinois National Bank in Chicago, now merged into the Bank of America. He served in the U.S. military during World War II and was awarded the Bronze Star. After the war, he took a job with California Bank in Los Angeles, where he worked until coming to Oregon in 1960. He married Eleanore Madsen in 1946. She died in 1998.

Voss was a director of the Portland branch of the Federal Reserve Bank and then became a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. He served on a multitude of boards of directors for some of Oregon's most prominent businesses, including Jantzen, Louisiana-Pacific Corp., Grantree, Northwest Natural Gas, and Payless Drug Stores Northwest. He was elected to the Oregon Bankers Association Hall of Fame in 1989 and received the University of Minnesota's highest alumni achievement award in 1973. Don Sorensen, retired banking reporter for The Oregonian, recalled Voss as "a strong banker, a fine fellow." "He was very fair and very generous with his time," Sorensen said. Another former reporter for The Oregonian, Gerry Pratt, wrote in 1962 that Voss was a tough interview. He'd spent 31 years in bankers' pinstripes, Pratt said, and "atmosphere has rubbed off on him, so that even without the dark, finely striped suit, the conservative gray silk tie, you would spot him for what he is, a banker, right clean through." And that's the way he wanted it, Voss said later. "I can't think of any other job I'd want," he told the Oregon Journal.

Voss died Sunday morning at his assisted living center, Terwilliger Terrace. He is survived by his son, of La Canada, Calif.; his daughter, Janet of Lake Oswego; and two grandchildren. No services will be held. Cremation arrangements will be by Riverview Abbey. Remembrances may be made to the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and to the neonatal unit at Doernbecher Children's Hospital.

January 22, 2002
The Portland Oregonian - Oregon

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[Ralph's parents were in Eagle Grove, Wright County, Iowa in April, 1910 - enumerated in 1910 census; parents: Lauritz Jensby Voss and Maren Christensen Voss]