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Several years ago, when top Bay Cities Bank executives were getting ready to host a lunch at their Tampa office for a group of customers, Bronson Thayer offered to bring dessert.
It wasn't the typical kind of errand for someone with the stature of Thayer — a longtime area executive, banker and onetime president of the Florida Banker's Association. But Thayer, say several who knew him well, was the antithesis of the elitist banker. Instead, he was someone who loved chatting with the shoeshine guy as much as a Wall Street honcho.
True to form, Thayer brought a tasty treat to cap off the lunch: Two individual gallons of ice cream he held in a brown paper bag, recalls then Bay Cities CEO Greg Bryant. Thayer even pulled an old-school ice cream scoop out of his suit jacket pocket.
“That was just like him,” says Bryant. “He was a rare person.”
Thayer died Christmas Eve after a multi-year battle with prostate cancer. He was 77.
“Within the banking industry in Florida, Bronson cast a very long shadow,” says Bryant. “He was universally well-known, well-liked and respected.”
Thayer was born on Long Island, N.Y., graduated from Harvard College and later earned an M.B.A from New York University. He married Stella Ferguson Thayer, a prominent area lawyer and philanthropist, who is also a member of the Lykes family. The Lykes family business portfolio includes land holdings and an insurance firm.
Thayer's list of career and civic accomplishments run deep. The list includes:
Vice president of Wall Street investment bank Dominick & Dominick from 1969 to 1972, based in New York;
Executive vice president and CFO of Lykes Bros. Inc. from 1974 to 1983, based in Tampa;
Chairman and CEO of First Florida Banks, a Lykes family entity;
Was on the Lykes Bros. board, and sat on the governance, finance and strategic planning committees;
On the board of the Jacksonville Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta;
President of the Florida Bankers Association from 1989 to 1990;
Chairman of the Florida Chamber of Commerce from 1991 to 1992;
A longtime Hillsborough County resident, Thayer was also on the board of the Bok Tower Gardens and Foundation in Polk County, among many other civic roles.
One of Thayer's last business ventures he ran from start to exit was Bay Cities Bank. Thayer co-founded the bank in 1999. Arkansas-based Home BancShares, parent company of Centennial Bank, bought Bay Cities' parent, Florida Business BancGroup Inc., in a $101.6 million cash/stock deal in 2015.
In banking, Bryant says Thayer's best skill was building consensus to get deals done or sway opinions. In life, Thayer was known for his kind and generous spirit. “For someone who is as well-known as Bronson was,” Bryant says, “I never heard an unflattering word said about him.”
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