Joseph A Rice

Joseph A. Rice was formerly Chairman and CEO of Irving Bank Corporation and its principal subsidiary, Irving Trust Company. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1948, and earned a Master of Industrial Engineering at New York University's School of Engineering in 1952 and an M.A. in Government at NYU's Graduate School of Arts and Science and has served as its first chair. He received the Alumni Meritorious Service Award from the NYU Alumni Association Awards Committee for his years of service on the Faculty of Arts and Science Board of Overseers. He is a trustee of Blanton-Peale Institute and of Historic Hudson Valley, where he serves as vice chairman of the board. He has also served on numerous corporate boards, including Apache Corporation, Avon Products Corporation, North American Philips Corporation, and Thiokol Corporation. A trustee of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation beginning in 1985 and chairman of the board of trustees from 1997 to 2013, he became chairman emeritus in 2013. Joseph Rice was the chairman and chief executive of the Irving Bank Corporation in 1987 when a regional rival, the Bank of New York, made a hostile takeover offer. The battle lasted for more than a year, becoming the longest-running takeover fight in American business history to that point. Irving Bank’s board agreed to sell in 1988, striking a deal that made Bank of New York the nation’s 12th-largest bank. The corporate fight took a personal toll on Mr. Rice who retired after the acquisition, his son Philip said. He served on the boards of several public companies, including Avon Products and Apache Corporation, and was the chairman of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation’s board of trustees from 1997 to 2013. His business career took him to 57 countries. He was often accompanied on those trips by his wife, Katharine Wolfe Rice, whom he married in 1948 and who was known as Kay. She died in 2013. In addition to his son Philip, Mr. Rice is survived by two other sons, Walter and Alan; a daughter, Carol Rice; a grandson; and two step-grandsons.