Happy 90th Birthday David Ellis Adams Carson – Innovator, Actuary, Banker, Philanthropist

When you talk about business impact and philanthropic influence in Bridgeport, David Carson’s legacy is to be admired with the likes of P.T. Barnum, industrialist Frank D’Addario and Betty Pfriem, former publisher of the Connecticut Post.

I am fortunate to be Carson’s biographer via Bow Tie Banker. When he served 35 years ago as chief executive of People’s Bank he built the tallest building in the city an $80 million project in the central business district that is now the regional headquarters for M&T Bank that purchased People’s a few years ago.

Born in England, Carson’s evolution as a banking executive took an unconventional route. A trained actuary at the University of Michigan, Carson’s whole mantra for corporate change – he wasn’t afraid to break the china – was based in research and mathematical fact. For instance, the numbers didn’t lie: teenage drivers were more prone to accidents than experienced drivers. But Carson does not make decisions based simply on the math. He invests in people and had the audacity to pay women equally with men when no one was doing that. He believes in the productivity of the human spirit and had confidence in the skill of American engineers. When Carson served in the U.S. Army he had the remarkable job of testing the detonation accuracy of hand grenades, so this is a man who understands ultimate risk.

Carson was radical for the times,  dramatically younger than the other senior officers at The Hartford – he wore white suits, he had facial chops, shoulder-length hair, he wore bow ties and he talked technology – anathema to some decision makers at The Hartford.

After ITT purchased The Hartford, Carson decided he should move on. He left The Hartford in 1974, senior vice president earning $90,000 a year – that was a lot of money back then – with thousands of employees underneath him, and took a one-third pay cut to become chief executive of Middlesex Mutual Assurance in Middletown, that had 90 employees in total.

Carson’s mantra: do what you love and the money will follow.

Former People’s chief executive Samuel Hawley served on the Middlesex board. About 10 years later Carson was named chief executive of People’s. He moved into Bridgeport because he wanted to be part of the community. He became de facto godfather of the business community. People’s blossomed into the largest bank based on Connecticut, a technology leader in pay by phone and real time banking.

Carson had served on the Board of Education in West Hartford. He became a key benefactor of the Bridgeport Public Education Fund that provides project support for innovative programs in Bridgeport public schools.

Carson invested in people. His generosity was legendary and he did not wave pompoms about it.

In 1994, a young marketing professional that did freelance work for the bank applied for a six-figure mortgage as a first-time home buyer. The specs did not quite meet the bank’s debt-to-income ratio guidelines.

The first line mortgage staff did not reject it outright. It got kicked upstairs to a senior officer who took a look and then kicked it higher to the top floor executive row where Carson had his office.

Carson was in the business of building a bank not reviewing low-level loans. The odds that it even found his desk were miniscule. Carson signed off on the application. Thirty years later it remains a family home.

I know this story because I was the applicant.

Carson never said a word to me about approving the loan. I learned it from a legal insider who represented the bank. “Boy, are you lucky,” he said to me.

Yes, very.

Now retired from business for 25 years, Carson is still active, engaged and curious about a host of issues, including things going on in Bridgeport.

Happy 90th birthday David Ellis Adams Carson: August 2, 1934.