Brandon, Edward B.

It's rare, in these days of downsizing and job-shifting and corporate discontent, to find someone like Ed Brandon, whose entire career has been so wholly devoted to a single company and who has translated that commitment into similar contributions to the community. 

Brandon, who retired as chairman of the National City Corp. in September 1995, started his banking career as a management trainee in 1956, fresh from completing his MBA at Wharton School of Banking and Finance and a stint in the U.S. Navy, prior to which the native of Davenport, Iowa, received his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University. It was at Northwestern that Brandon met his wife, Phyllis, a native of Vermilion. 

By the early 1980s, Brandon had risen through the ranks of National City's corporate management to manager of the corporate and consumer banking divi­sions in 1982. He served as National City Corp.'s chairman for eight years, as well as chief executive officer from September 1987 to July 1995. Prior to his appointment as CEO, Brandon served as National City Corp.'s president and chairman and CEO of National City Bank, retaining the latter position through April 1989. 

Certainly someone of Brandon's stature has received numerous nibbles from other companies. He was seriously tempted, though, only once, in the mid-1970s. A New York state bank asked Brandon to head its corporate division, but ultimately, the city that had by then become Brandon's de facto hometown won out. 

"I think I decided that while the immediate financial gain was attractive, the ultimate opportunity was greater here," he says. "That turned out, luckily, to be true." 

During his career, Brandon was significantly involved with the community, serving on a dizzying list of boards that includes United Way Services, Cleveland Tomorrow, the Greater Cleveland Growth Association, Playhouse Square Foundation, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Musical Arts Association and St. Vincent Charity Hospital and Health Center. Today, his community commitment continues as a board member of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Notre Dame College of Ohio and John Carroll University. 

Brandon is also a lifetime member of the Bankers Roundtable and a director of the Standard Products Co. and RPM Inc. 

How a high-ranking executive has time to devote to so many causes is puzzling even to Brandon himself. "It's a good question. I don't know how to answer it. The day is divided into several sections ... so it depends what you use that time for." 

Brandon says he avoided many purely social obligations in favor of working for favorite organizations — "there's no time for the bowling league," he says — and over time easily moved into the role of community activist. "You rapidly find yourself becoming a better organizer," he says. "The company that you're running has to necessarily be organized to function without your day-to-day presence." 

Which is, Brandon says, at the heart of his decision to come to Cleveland and to stay here, even in his retirement. "Cleveland's a unique town," he says. "The Cleveland executive's involvement is mind-boggling to most people outside the city. My friends in Detroit and Pittsburgh are still trying to figure it out. 

"You look at what's happened here post-Kucinich — up until then, you were still riding on the economic heydays —when the community crystallized itself behind disaster. That energy lasted an enormous amount of time. My concern is that it will continue." 

But, he adds, as he has told his friend and colleague Morton Mandel, there's always a new generation willing to take up the causes to which Brandon has devoted — and continues to devote — so much time and energy.