MIAMI GARDENS, Fla.–Ira D. Hall Jr., 78, a native of Oklahoma City, who was IBM’s first Black corporate officer, died on Jan. 11.
Ira DeVoyd Hall Jr. was born on Aug. 23, 1944, in Oklahoma City to Ira D. Hall Sr. and Rubye Hibbler Hall. (His parents were both prominent educators in Oklahoma City and at Langston University.)
After he graduated in 1966 from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree, having majored in electrical engineering, he received a master of business administration degree from Stanford.
Mr. Hall began working for the Hewlett-Packard Corp. in corporate marketing.
He launched the Stanford Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition in Palo Alto, Calif., with HP’s founders (William Hewlett and David Packard) in 1968 and served as executive director for six years.
In 1970, Mr. Hall was the founding president and chief executive officer of MidPen Housing, which built and managed housing for people with low –income to moderate-income.
During business school, Mr. Hall returned to HP in corporate international.
After business school, in 1976, Mr. Hall became a corporate finance investment banker at Morgan Stanley.
In 1982, Mr. Hall became a senior vice president at L.F. Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin.
He, then, joined IBM in 1985, first serving as an assistant to the treasurer, then, as director of corporate business development, assistant general manager of finance and administration for the computer integrated manufacturing systems unit, and corporate assistant treasurer, becoming IBM’s first African-American corporate officer.
In 1990, Mr. Hall became treasurer of IBM, U.S., and, in 1994, director of international operations for IBM.
In 1998, Mr. Hall joined Texaco as general manager of alliance management.
The following year, he was promoted to treasurer.
In 2002, Mr. Hall became president and CEO of UCM, LLC, a Wall Street investment management firm with over $2 billion in assets under management.
Mr. Hall retired from UCM, LLC, in 2004.
In 1970, Mr. Hall became the first Black and youngest member of Stanford University’s board of trustees.
He was appointed to the California Governor’s State Land Use Task Force in 1973.
In 1987, Miss Hall was nominated by President Ronald Reagan and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a governor of the United States Postal Service, chairing its audit committee.
In 1993, he served on the Clinton-Gore Presidential Transition Team, as chairman of the Governmental Operations sub-committee.
Mr. Hall chaired the U.S. Treasury’s Thrift Depositor Protection Oversight Board, the advisory board of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University, the Executive Leadership Council and Miami-Dade County’s Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center.
Mr. Hall also has served on the boards of the Pepsi Bottling Group, American Express Funds, TECO Energy, Praxair, Inc Imagistics International and the Jackie Robinson Foundation and on the Stanford Alumni Executive Board and the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
He established the Ira D. Hall Fellowship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2009.
In 2017, he endowed at Stanford University the Ira D. Hall Award for Service Leadership before Age 30.
Mr. Hall was the 2020 recipient of Stanford’s Ernest C. Arbuckle Award.
Mr. Hall is survived by his wife, Carole Hall.
Also, he is survived b two daughters: Alicia Hall Moran and Stephanie E. Hall.
In addition, he is survived by a sister, Jesslyn Hall Head; and a brother, John A. Hall. (Mr. Hall’s sister, Dr. Carole Hall Hardeman, an educator, who lived in Oklahoma City, died last year.)
Funeral services were held on Jan. 21 at the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Miami Gardens.
Services were under the direction of Range Funeral Home.
