Willard Bunn III, or “Googan” to his friends, has not only served as chairman, chief executive, and/or director of several commercial banks in the course of his 40 year career but is also a great friend to the Darden community.
After earning his BA from Princeton University, his long career in the banking industry began at Chemical Bank in New York before he returned to Springfield in 1978 to serve as Executive Vice President, and eventually Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, of Marine Corporation, a multi-bank holding company with $1.2 billion of assets. Following Marine’s merger with Banc One, he was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Banc One Illinois Corporation, a position which he held until 1994. Afterwards, he went on to serve in various management positions with two investment banking firms.
But wait, there’s more, he also served as a Director of Baytree Bank of Lake Forest, Illinois from its founding in 2000 and as Chairman of the Bank from April 2010 to August 2012. And he continues to serve on the Board of Directors of CIB Marine Bancshares, Inc., a bank holding company based in Waukesha, Wisconsin, that operates banking offices in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. He also serves on the Boards of Midland National Life Insurance Company and North American Company for Life and Health Insurance, insurance subsidiaries of the Sammons Financial Group. In 2012, he joined Colonnade Advisors in 2012 as a Managing Director.
What you may not know is that in addition to a heavy left-brain career path, Willard is a member of the Board of the Poetry Foundation, a literary organization and publisher of Poetry magazine. I know his writings are much better than:
Haikus are easy.
But sometimes they don’t make sense.
Refrigerator.
Darden Chicago Alumni 