The Tribune

RICHARD Peyton Woodson III, a director of British American Insurance Company (BA) for three decades and its Chairman for 12 years until 1986, has died aged 93.

Mr Woodson - known as Peyton - passed away in Raleigh, North Carolina, after a fall in his home.

He was born and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Barely 20, he served his country in World War II, flying 24 missions as a B-17 pilot in the Eighth Air Force over Europe. His most memorable mission was Operation Chowhound, a week before Victory in Europe Day, when he flew over The Netherlands to drop crates of food for the starving Dutch masses who were still suffering German occupation. In 2016, the French Government - “with endless respect and affection, in recognition of his noble contribution during World War II” - honoured him with the Legion of Honour medal. Only a quarter of the pilots returned home, such was the attrition rate.

After the war, Mr Woodson returned to Princeton University, followed by Stanford Business School. He ran the family grocery business in Albuquerque, where he married Martha Avison. They moved to Raleigh, where he took a role in the family insurance business of Occidental Life Insurance and BA. His greatest honour was being Chairman of LOMA, the US life insurance industry’s largest professional association.

Mr Woodson served on many boards in Raleigh, such as Shaw University. For three decades, he was a board member of FHI360, a company that tackles family planning and AIDS in 70 countries. His wife pre-deceased him in 2011 after 58 years of marriage. He is survived by his daughters, Sheila and Martha, and son Richard P Woodson IV. He never retired and drove to his office every day to run Woodson Associates, his management consultancy firm that has existed for over 40 years.

In three years, BA celebrates its centenary. It was founded by five Bahamians - J S Walter, Mark Johnson, R J A Farrington, Cyril F Solomon and William Sand - who were an insurance agent, a tobacconist and three merchants respectively. It sold debit insurance where premiums were collected on the doorstep. From 1935 to 1988, BA was controlled by the McMillen Trust, which also controlled two US life insurance companies, Occidental and Peninsular. Larry Lee senior and junior were Chairmen from 1935 to 1974, when Mr Woodson took over until 1986. Under their leadership, but particularly under Mr Woodson’s, this ‘six pence a week company’ grew explosively and its Head Office was always in Frederick Street, Nassau. By the 1980s, it consisted of six divisions and 44 profit centres doing business in 33 countries, as far away as Fiji and Malaysia. They included First Home Savings and Loan (now Royal Fidelity) and BA Bahamas (now BAF). Other operations were captive insurance management, property casualty reinsurance, Bramco housing, Britam Insurance Brokers and a host of trading operations, such as The Pilot House Hotel.

In the developing countries, Mr Woodson believed in a corporate-government equation or partnership: BA had to adapt to their social and economic needs and go beyond its core business to find ways to be helpful to BA’s hosts. Being a good corporate citizen is old hat now but it was not in those days and shows his enlightened thinking. In 2014, he hosted a reunion in Raleigh that was attended by various BA executives that helped build the company.

He will be remembered for the graciousness and Southern charm that he brought to any occasion, whether it was a business or social gathering.