Vernard W Henley

It was 1951. Richmond native Vernard W. Henley had just graduated from Virginia State College with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He was the oldest of nine children whose parents, a carpet installer with a fourth-grade education and a housewife with a third-grade education, had encouraged their children to get as much education as possible, although they could provide no financial help. He was the first of his family to go to college. When Mr. Henley revealed that he had accepted a job as an assistant note teller at Mechanics & Farmers Bank in Durham, N.C., his college roommate asked, “Why are you going to work for a black-owned bank? It’s a dead end.” It was not a dead end for Mr. Henley, who retired in 2001 as chairman and CEO of Consolidated Bank & Trust Co., the oldest continuously black-owned U.S. bank. Mr. Henley joined the bank in 1954, left and then returned to rise as president in 1971 and chairman and CEO in 1984. A graduate of Hickory Hill High School in Chesterfield County, Mr. Henley served in the Army in the Korean War, earning a Bronze Star for valor. His board positions included the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Manassas Education Foundation, the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen, the Richmond Memorial Foundation and the Virginia Community Development Corp. He had been a trustee at Virginia Union University, associate board member at St. Paul’s College, chairman of the Virginia Housing Development Authority and president of the Maymont Foundation. Mr. Henley had been a director of the Old Dominion Bar Association, a trustee of the University Fund of Virginia Commonwealth University and had been active with the United Negro College Fund. He was the widower of Pheriby Christine Gibson Henley, a retired teacher in the Richmond school system, who died in April 2010. Survivors include two sons, Vernard W. Jr. and Wade G. Henley; and a daughter, Adrienne.