Bancorp South Inc. chairman to speak
Heath Fowler, The Reflector
The head of BancorpSouth, Inc. and chairman of the American Banker’s Association Aubrey Patterson, Jr., will give a presentation Tuesday at Mississippi State University.
Patterson, a native of Tupelo, Miss. and a graduate of the University of Mississippi, will be speaking as a Leo W. Seals, Jr. Distinguished Executive Speaker at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday in the Rogers auditorium of McCool Hall.
Dr. Larry White, the director of the banking excellence program at MSU, called Patterson’s upcoming presentation “a rare opportunity” for MSU students, faculty and other interested parties who wish to attend the speech.
“The reason we have the Leo Seals Executive Speaker Series is to afford our students the opportunity to be exposed to national leaders in their industry,” White said. “It is, in my mind at least, an extreme honor for us to have a Mississippian head up an organization such as the ABA.”
As head of BancorpSouth, Inc., Patterson leads a bank holding company with $10 billion in assets. The subsidiary bank, BancorpSouth, has 240 banking locations in six states — Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas.
White said Patterson will probably speak on several different topics during his presentation.
“We wanted him to come and talk about a variety issues, including what’s going on in the stock market in regard to the Enron scandal and others in which information was convoluted if not purposefully misrepresented and some of the effects of that,” White said. “We also hope he will to talk with some of the students about opportunities for their future.”