Walter A. Dods Jr. took First Hawaiian Bank out of the shadow of its main rival and turned it into one of the 25 largest banks in the country.
The son of a Honolulu police sergeant and a Waikiki restaurant cashier, Dods was born in 1941 and grew up in 'Aina Haina. He was the oldest of seven children.
Dods started working at age 15 and never looked back. He graduated from Saint Louis High School and pumped gas, bagged groceries and washed dishes to pay for his education. He went to work as a mail boy for First Insurance, attended the University of Hawai'i at night, eventually earning a degree in business administration.
He joined First Hawaiian Bank in 1968 when it was known as First National Bank of Hawai'i. Dods was hired as director of advertising and public relations, and right away he was asked to oversee the bank's name change to First Hawaiian.
His first advertising campaign made the word "yes" synonymous with the bank, but loan executives at the time so disliked it that they tried to get Dods fired.
Dods rose through the ranks and in 1984 became bank president. In 1989, he became chief executive officer after the sudden death of CEO John Bellinger.
At the time, First Hawaiian was the second-largest bank in the Islands, but Dods began an era of modernization and mergers. Within six months, the bank acquired First Interstate Bank. Soon, Pioneer Federal Savings and First Hawaiian Creditcorp would be merged into the bank.
His greatest banking triumph, though, came in 1998 with the merger of Bank of the West in California, forming BancWest Corp. Three years later, he negotiated BancWest's acquisition by BNP Paribas of France in a deal that brought him $20 million personally.
By the time he retired in 2004 as CEO of BancWest Corp. and First Hawaiian Bank, BancWest had nearly $50 billion total assets.
During his career, Dods also oversaw the construction of the 430-foot-tall, $175 million First Hawaiian Center, the tallest building in downtown Honolulu.
He also served as campaign manager for former Gov. George Ariyoshi and U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, both Democrats.
