William A. Conway

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William A. Conway was born on April 16, 1910 and died on March 31, 2006.

Born in Newark, NJ, Conway resided for much of his life in Summit, NJ. While his career was notable for the fact that he rose from Wall Street messenger boy to CEO of Garden Sate National Bank ("Garden State"), he is best remembered for his efforts of behalf of stockholders of Garden State during the late 1970's as a dissident director on the board. His independent efforts to block a merger he viewed as unfair to certain minority shareholders is often compared to the shareholder rights efforts undertaken in recent years by hedge funds.

Mr. Conway attended the Pingry School in Elizabeth, NJ but did not graduate due to a bout with rheumatic fever that sidelined him for several months. Though Conway never finished high school, he started work as an errand boy on Wall Street and later began what turned out to be an illustrious banking career. He started work as a clerk at the Hudson County National Bank in Jersey City, NJ and became president of the bank, leading it through a period of technological change and mergers.

In the case of the 1978 proposed merger between Garden State and National State Bank of Elizabeth, Garden State's majority investor, Warner Communications, would have received a larger percentage of cash than the minority shareholders. Originally supported by Garden State's CEO, Charles A. Agemian, who was also on the board of Warner Communications, it was ultimately defeated after Conway waged an independant effort via the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency which ultimately blocked the transaction by placing conditions on the merger application that Agemian viewed as unrealistic December 4, 1978, Section a7, The Record, Hackensack, NJ. Garden State ultimately merged in 1980 with Fidelity Union Bancorporation of Newark (which later became part of Wachovia).

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