Dee hock biography

FOUNDER AND CEO EMERITUS VISA USA AND VISA INTERNATIONAL, NOW VISA INC

Born March 21, 1929, in North Ogden, Utah.

September 1947 to June 1949. Weber College, Ogden Utah.

September 22, 1949. Married Ferol Delors Cragun in Salt Lake City, Utah.

1949 to 1952.  Branch Manager, Pacific Finance, Ogden Utah.

1952 to 1953.  Branch Manager, Pacific Finance, Klamath Falls, Oregon. 

1953 to 1955.  Assistant Manager, Public Relations and Advertising Department, Pacific Finance, Los Angeles, California.

1955 to 1962.  General Manager, Columbia Investment Company, Los Angeles, California.  

1962 to 1966.  Northwest Regional Supervisor, CIT Financial, Seattle, Washington.

1966 to 1970.  Vice President and General Manager, BankAmericard Department, National Bank of Commerce, Seattle Washington, and Chairman of the National Executive Committee of BankAmericard issuing Banks.

In 1967, The National Bank of Commerce entered the Bankcard business as one of the first six banks in the United States licensed by  Bank of America to issue BankAmericard, credit cards, and enroll merchants.  It quickly became a national system with more than a hundred licensed banks.  Other banks banded together to create Mastercard.  Massive card issuance exploded nationwide as bank after bank entered one system or the other.  With wholly inadequate credit controls, or systems for the authorizations and clearance of sales drafts between banks, credit and operating losses skyrocketed, bringing the twosystems to the brink of collapse.

In 1968, a meeting of licensee banks was called by Bank of America to discuss some of the critical problems.  It soon disintegrated into angry accusations and finger pointing.  Long convinced that Bank Credit Card was a misnomer and marketing blunder, that its real future was as a global device for the exchange of value, Hock was appalled by the chaos in the syste

Founder and former C.E.O of Visa Inc.

Dee Ward Hock (March 21, 1929 – July 16, 2022) was the founder and CEO of the Visa credit card association.

Early life and education

Hock was born in North Ogden, Utah, in 1929 to a Mormon family. His father, Alma, was a utility lineman, and his mother, Cecil, was a homemaker. Hock attended Weber State University, where he graduated with a two-year degree in 1949.

Career

After graduation, Hock began working various jobs in the financial services industry. He served as the manager of two Pacific Finance branches, an assistant manager of public relations and advertising for Pacific Finance, a general manager of Columbia Investment Company, and then as a supervisor at CIT Financial. In 1966, he was hired by National Bank of Commerce, a local bank in Seattle, Washington. In 1967, he began managing the bank's credit card brand, BankAmericard, which was being licensed from Bank of America. Through a series of unlikely accidents, Hock helped invent and became chief executive of the credit system that became Visa Inc. Early on, he convinced Bank of America to give up ownership and control of their BankAmericard credit card licensing program, forming a new company, National BankAmerica, that was owned by its member banks. The name was changed to Visa in 1976.

In May 1984, Hock resigned his management role with Visa, retiring to spend almost ten years in relative isolation working a 200-acre (0.81 km) ranch on the Pacific coast to the west of Silicon Valley in Pescadero, California. He was inducted into Junior Achievement's U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1991, and the Money magazine hall of fame in 1992.

In his 1991 Business Hall of Fame acceptance speech, Hock explained:

Through the years, I have greatly feared and sought to keep at bay the four beasts th