1. Active in banking since around 1960, McColl was a driving force behind consolidating a series of progressively larger, mostly Southern banks, thrifts and financial institutions into a super-regional banking force, "the first ocean-to-ocean bank in the nation's history".
Hugh McColl is of Scottish Presbyterian descent and had a sister and two brothers.
Hugh McColl's father liquidated the Bank of Marlboro in 1939 during the Great Depression.
Hugh McColl later bought a controlling interest in Marlboro Trust Co.
Hugh McColl learned to keep books, securing payments, learning double-entry accounting and driving across North and South Carolina to make deposits.
Hugh McColl was elected student council president at Bennettsville High School, and class president in his senior year.
Hugh McColl was voted Best All-Round Boy in his senior class.
Hugh McColl declined an offer from his father-in-law, John McKee Spratt, a banker, attorney, and judge, to work at the Bank of Fort Mill, a small family-owned bank.
Hugh McColl accepted his father's arranging an introduction to officers at another bank.
Young Hugh McColl went to work as a management trainee for American Commercial Bank in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In 1960, a year after Hugh McColl joined American Commercial Bank, the bank merged with Greensboro's Security National Bank, becoming North Carolina National Bank.
Vigorously competitive, Hugh McColl deployed a methodical, military approach to transforming the small regional bank, via incremental acquisitions and mergers, into NationsBank and ultimately Bank of America.
Strategically, Hugh McColl blunted opposition to the bank mergers and acquisitions by pledging in advance billion in loans for low-income neighborhoods, particularly with the creation of NationsBank and Bank of America.
Hugh McColl subsequently established and was chairman of MBL Advisors Holdings, LLC, a Charlotte-based company with his son-in-law, Luther Lockwood, as managing principal and providing wealth transfer planning, business succession and executive benefits services to business owners and public company executives.
In 2009, Hugh McColl Partners joined an international network of investment banks called Clairfield Partners, which collaborates on international deals.
Hugh McColl has been on the board of directors of Sykes Enterprises Inc.
The headquarters of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill was named the Hugh McColl Building upon its completion in 1997 in recognition of Hugh McColl's efforts on behalf of his alma mater.
Hugh McColl has mentored students of the Hugh McColl Business School at Queens University of Charlotte where he served on the Board of Trustees for 19 years.
In 1991, Hugh McColl purchased, restored, and relocated one of his great-grandfather Duncan Donald Hugh McColl's homes in Bennettsville, South Carolina and then donated it to Marlboro County.
In 1998 and 2004, Jane Spratt McColl, with Hugh McColl, donated 400 acres on the Catawba River in York County, South Carolina near Rock Hill, South Carolina for an environmental museum, possibly to be named the Museum of Life and the Environment, with building design by architect William McDonough.
Hugh McColl wrote to Clinton recommending a pardon for Hendrick and subsequently announced on December 7,2000, Bank of America Foundation would donate $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
Hugh McColl entered the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame in 1990, in 1997 he was voted Tarheel of the Year, in 2005 he entered the North Carolina Business Hall of Fame, and in 2007, entered the Junior Achievement US Business Hall of Fame.
Hugh McColl was named "Family Champion" by Working Mother magazine, he earned the Pioneer Award from the Organization for a New Equality and won the Applause Award from Women's Business Enterprise National Council.
In 2008, Hugh McColl was named South Texan of the Year, and in 2009, Hugh McColl received the North Carolina Award for public service.