Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

hired Leo W. Seal, Sr., as his sawmill cashier and
brought Seal over to Hancock Bank as cashier.
Seal would later be named the bank’s president
after Weston’s death in 1931.
Throughout Seal’s 32-year tenure as
Hancock’s president, Hancock and Whitney
leaders remained connected, supportive
peers. When the Great Depression rocked the
country and cast the financial industry into
turmoil, the presidents of both banks were
committed to seeing their businesses and
home markets succeed, despite formidable
uncertainty. At the height of the crisis in
1935, Seal and Whitney President John D.
O’Keefe, who by then had become social
friends as well as banking contemporaries,
vowed their institutions would always assist
each other in times of hardship.
Seal and O’Keefe sealed their partnership
with a handshake, but neither man would
foresee the enduring significance of that
Depression-era pledge. While hundreds of
other banks were forced to close their doors,
the promise kept by Seal, O’Keefe and
O’Keefe’s successor, Keehn W. Berry, ensured
that Hancock and Whitney would move safely
through the Depression, withstand the century’s
toughest challenges and sustain the
strength and stability that ultimately brought
the two banks together with the 2011 merger.
The Hancock Whitney of 2018 has consistently
rated as one of America’s strongest, safest
banks for more than 28 years in a row and
remains deeply committed to its New Orleans
and Gulf Coast roots. Assets for Hancock
Whitney Corporation, the bank’s parent
company, currently surpass $27 billion. The
bank boasts more than 200 financial centers
and has been listed twice among Forbes’
“100 Most Trustworthy Companies” and “Top
20 Banks.” After Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
Hancock Whitney was a pivotal force in
regional recovery and rebuilding and continues
to thrive as a trusted resource for business and
elected leaders and a catalyst for economic
opportunity in Greater New Orleans and across
the Gulf Coast. Plans underway to transform
the Central Business District’s One Shell Square
tower into the Hancock Whitney Center will
bring many of the bank’s 1,400 Greater New
Orleans associates to a new regional headquarters
in Louisiana’s tallest building.
Much like their predecessors of a century
earlier, senior executives John M. Hairston,
Joseph S. Exnicios, Michael M. Achary, and D.
Shane Loper steered the bank through economic
recessions and transformational mergers. The
friendship and commitment between the two
grand old banks began with a commitment to
depositors in 1918. They promised to aid each
other in 1935 and will celebrate the hundredth
anniversary of the Whitney merger with Bank
of Orleans on May 25, 2018, by formally combining
the two brands into Hancock Whitney.
As Hancock Whitney continues to grow,
4,000 associates in six states will honor their
founders’ vision and that 1935 handshake by
carrying on the bank’s mission, purpose, and
core values to help even more people and
businesses around New Orleans, the Gulf
Coast, the Gulf South and the Nation achieve
their financial goals and dreams.
Opposite, top: Successful New Orleans
businessmen Peter Hellwege (left) and
Eugene H. Roberts as well as Hellwege’s
son, Peter E. Hellwege, were among
founders and early leaders of both Hancock
County Bank (est. 1899) and the Bank of
Orleans (est. 1904). The elder Hellwege led
the founding of the Bank of Orleans, and he
and Roberts each served simultaneous terms
as presidents of Hancock County Bank and
the Bank of Orleans. The junior Hellwege
was a vice president at Hancock and Bank
of Orleans until 1908. After Roberts led the
decision to sell the Bank of Orleans to
Whitney Bank in 1918, he became a
Whitney vice president and remained a
highly respected New Orleans banker until
his death in 1923.
Opposite, bottom: Hancock County,
Mississipppi, native Leo W. Seal, Sr. (left) and
New Orleanian John D. O’Keefe became
presidents of Hancock County Bank and
Whitney Bank, respectively, as America
spiraled into the economic abyss of the Great
Depression. While hundreds of other local
banks failed, each executive endeavored to
keep his bank open as a safe place for people
to keep their money. Their astute leadership
and friendship built on the early connections
between Hellwege and Roberts and secured a
mutually supportive hundred-year alliance
that ensured Hancock Whitney would keep
each other strong for clients and communities
when economic uncertainty arose.
Top: For 135 years, Whitney Bank operated
from headquarters along Gravier Street
and, later, St. Charles Avenue. Today, a
landmark complex of historic buildings
features the iconic Whitney Bank clock
(left), which debuted in 1926 and still
echoes its familiar carillon across the city’s
Central Business District. In 2018 Hancock
Whitney will move its main New Orleans
offices to the Hancock Whitney Center at
701 Poydras Street (right)—another
soaring site in the New Orleans skyline, the
city’s first skyscraper, and the tallest
building in Louisiana.
THE MARKETPLACE
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