Eben Wright Pyne (June 14, 1917 – April 11, 2007) was an American soldier and banker who served as president of the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company (which later became Citibank).
Pyne was born on June 14, 1917. He was a son of financier Grafton Howland Pyne (1890–1935) [1] and Leta Constance (née Wright) Pyne (1892–1957). Percy Rivington Pyne III, [2] John Wright Pyne, [3] and Alison (née Pyne) Ewing (wife of New Jersey State Senator John H. Ewing). [4] [5]
His paternal grandparents were the prominent banker and philanthropist Percy Rivington Pyne II and Maud (née Howland) Pyne (daughter of New York merchant Gardiner Greene Howland). [6] His paternal uncle was Percy Rivington Pyne Jr., a flier with the 103d Aero Squadron during World War I. [7] His maternal grandfather was prominent art collector Eben Wright. [6]
Pyne attended the Groton School where he played on the football team before attending Princeton University, where he graduated in 1939. [5]
After Princeton, he became a clerk at Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, an affiliate of what was then National City Bank of New York. After the World War II, he rejoined the bank and was promoted quickly. In 1957, he was named president of the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, [8] succeeding Richard S. Perkins who had been president since 1951. [9] In 1959, it became First National City Trust which was incorporated into First National City Bank in 1963, [10] when he was named "senior vice president in charge of the trust and investment division" before retiring in 1982. [5]
In 1958, he was elected to the finance and currency committee of the New York Chamber of Commerce alongside Roy Reierson of Bankers Trust and Dudley H. Mills of the Discount Corporation of New York. [11] In 1960, he joined the board of W. R. Grace & Co., which his wife's family founded. [12]
In 1964, he was recruited by Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller "to help rescue the failing Long Island Rail Road." [5] After helping create "a $200 million modernization program" that was approved by the New York Legislature in 1965, "Pyne was appointed to a seat on the transportation agency's original five-member governing board. [13] In that post, which he held until 1975, he helped steer the agency’s acquisition of other ailing suburban lines that had been merged into Conrail and later formed Metro-North." He was also a commissioner of the New York City Transit Authority, the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority, the Staten Island Rapid Transit Operating Authority and Stewart International Airport. [5]
In 1982, he was named by President Ronald Reagan to the Grace Commission (named after its director, the industrialist J. Peter Grace) which was "assigned to identify and suggest remedies for waste and abuse in the federal government." [5]
In 1940, Pyne joined the field artillery of the New York National Guard as a second lieutenant and during World War II, he fought in North Africa and Italy. His small artillery-observation plane was shot down by enemy fire over the Po Valley in Northern Italy, "he was briefly taken prisoner, but jumped off his German captors’ truck and escaped to Allied lines with the help of Italian partisans. He returned home in 1946 as a Major, with the Bronze Star and five battle stars." [5]
In 1941 Pyne was married to Hilda Elise Holloway (1920–1986), a daughter of Hilda (née Holmes) Holloway and William Grace Holloway, chairman of W. R. Grace & Co. [14] [15] Hilda was an avid golfer who showed horses at the Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley. [16] [17] Before her death in 1986, they were the parents of three daughters: [5]
In 1995, married Nancy Maguire (née Beebe) Gray, the daughter of Brig. Gen. Hamilton Ewing Maguire and the widow of Gordon Gray, a former secretary of the Army and president of the University of North Carolina. [27] Pyne had homes in Manhattan, Old Westbury on Long Island, Hobe Sound, Florida, and Northeast Harbor, Maine. [5]
Pyne died on April 11, 2007, at his home in Hobe Sound, Florida. [5]
Corinne Alsop Cole was an American politician who served two terms as a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives.
Moses Taylor was a 19th-century New York merchant and banker and one of the wealthiest men of that century. At his death, his estate was reported to be worth $70 million, or about $2.1 billion in today's dollars. He controlled the National City Bank of New York, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroad, and the Moses Taylor & Co. import business, and he held numerous other investments in railroads and industry.
Avery Rockefeller was an American investment banker and conservationist who was a member of the Rockefeller family.
Clinton Ledyard Blair was an American investment banker and yachtsman.
Frederic Pepoon Olcott was an American banker and politician.
Oliver Dwight Filley was an American businessman, abolitionist, and politician who served as the 16th mayor of St. Louis, Missouri, from 1858 to 1861.
Percy Rivington Pyne II was a banker, financier, and philanthropist.
Percy Rivington Pyne I was a migrant from England to the United States. He was president of City National Bank, a director of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, and a director of the New Jersey Zinc Company.
John Clinton Gray was an American lawyer and politician from New York.
Edward Coleman Delafield was an American banker and soldier who served as president of the Bank of America.
The Goodyear family is a prominent family from New York, whose members founded, owned and ran several businesses, including the Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad, Great Southern Lumber Company, Goodyear Lumber Co., Buffalo & Susquehanna Coal and Coke Co., and the New Orleans Great Northern Railroad Company. Stephen Goodyear was a founder of the New Haven Colony, and served as Deputy governor from 1643 to 1658. Stephen's descendent, Charles Goodyear, invented vulcanized rubber; the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company is named after him. The family was also involved in the arts. Anson Goodyear was an organizer of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; he served as its first president and a member of the board of trustees. William Henry Goodyear was the first curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Percy Rivington Pyne Jr. was an American fighter pilot who fought in World War I.
Percy Rivington Pyne 2nd was a banker, financier, and philanthropist. He founded the stock exchange firm of Pyne, Kendall Hollister.
Eben Sumner Draper was an American businessman and politician who served in the Massachusetts General Court, was president of the Milford National Bank & Trust, and was the last member of his family to serve on the board of directors of the Draper Corporation. He was the son of Massachusetts Governor Eben Sumner Draper.
Meredith Howland was an American soldier and clubman who was prominent in New York society during the Gilded Age.
Charles Suydam Cutting, CBE was an explorer, naturalist, society figure, philanthropist, and author. He travelled around the world on numerous expeditions including the Field Museum-Chicago Daily News Abyssinian, Kelley-Roosevelts Asiatic, and Vernay-Cutting Expeditions. He was among the first Europeans to enter the forbidden city of Lhasa in Tibet and is credited with introducing the Lhasa Apso breed into the United States.
Gardiner Greene Howland was a prominent American businessman who was a founding partner in the merchant firm of Howland & Aspinwall and a co-founder of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company.
Archibald Douglas Russell was an American financier and philanthropist.
The Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations in New York is a diplomatic mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations with headquarters in New York.
Samuel Denison Babcock was an American banker.