Jack Zoeller

Born in Buffalo, New York in 1949, Jack Zoeller attended West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government before heading to Oxford to complete a second master’s degree. He returned to service in the Army as a Ranger in the 82nd Airborne Division and program analyst in the Pentagon. After 10 years on active duty, Zoeller moved into a succession of chief executive roles, including as chairman of E.F. Hutton Indemnity, ComFed Bancorp and Bank of Virginia. As an entrepreneur he founded eight companies, including most recently Purefy Inc. and The Aunt Betty Fund, a non-profit supporting US students burdened by college loans. Zoeller has been a longtime supporter of the Rhodes Trust. As part of that work, he published a definitive examination of the early life of the first black Rhodes Scholar, Alain Locke (Pennsylvania & Hertford 1907). The following narrative is excerpted and edited from interviews with the Rhodes Trust on 20 and 21 June 2024.  

On applying for the Rhodes Scholarship 

In my senior year in high school, I learned from the West Point catalog that the Academy had the third highest number of Rhodes Scholars of any U.S. college; also that if you finished in the top five percent of your West Point class, the Army would pay for you to go to graduate school at the college of your choice. I was still sixteen when I set three big goals: trying to finish at or near the top of the class at West Point, getting into an elite graduate school, and trying to become a Rhodes Scholar.  The academics at West Point were intense, but I found that sports were how the other cadets took your measure.  In my first game as goalkeeper for my company soccer team, I made two critical saves, and became a bit of a hero as we went on to win the regiment. The next year I won the West Point open wrestling championship in my weight class.  Excelling in sports kept me from being labelled as a nerd, which likely would have happened, as I stood first in my class. To be sure, I was no longer the small guy, having grown 14 inches and 75 pounds since my freshman year in high school. 

The anti-war movement was taking hold in the late ‘60s. Over the following decade, nobody (outside the military and my close circle) reacted positively when they heard I was in the Army. Even after West Point, when I went to the Harvard Kennedy School, I remember being in a seminar when one of the students pointed to the window: ‘Look at the protesters out there.’ We rushed to take a look, and it turned out the demonstrators were protesting us, for taking a course in defense policy. All of those protests and negative inferences about the military had a huge impact on me.  

At West Point in the late ‘60s, the chair and about a dozen professors in the Social Sciences Department were Rhodes Scholars.  They told us about their experiences at Oxford and gave advice on applying and interviewing.  One of them, Larry Budge (Idaho & Exeter 1961), opined, ‘Oxford is the dessert of life.’ I remember thinking, ‘You’re 30 years old. It’s too early to be talking about the dessert of life.’ Looking back now, I see he was right. Another professor opened an opportunity for me to lead the annual Student Conference on US Affairs, attended by students from 200 colleges around the country. Still another Rhodes Scholar on the faculty, Josiah Bunting (Virginia & Christ Church 1963), took me under his wing for two years and offered advice which most of the time I accepted, and for which I remain immensely grateful. However, for reasons I could not comprehend, the Army told me in 1971 that I could not apply for a Rhodes Scholarship. Years later, I saw the memo signed by the four-star general who had overruled the Army Staff. It read, ‘Oh, let him compete. He’s going to lose anyway.’ 

‘I need to help clean this up’ 

When I got back to the US after Oxford, I assumed I would be in the Army long-term. 

Knowing I had a lot of ground to make up, I managed to finish first in my Ranger, Advanced Infantry, and Jumpmaster classes.  I had the privilege of commanding 140 soldiers in an infantry company in the 82nd Airborne; then ran the Division’s training program for a year; and during a crisis crafted a real-time deployment order for a brigade of the 82nd to parachute into a classified hotspot for which there was no existing contingency plan. I was awarded a medal for my work that day, but when I visited Washington to peruse my personnel file, I discovered numerous preposterous comments questioning my commitment and ability as an infantry officer. Without realising it, that day was my decision point. I could not stay in an Army that culturally could only see me as an ivory tower academic. I sought reassignment to the Army Chief of Staff’s office, joining a team that saved the all-volunteer Army and laid the groundwork for the most successful ad in the television era, the ‘Be All You Can Be’ campaign. 

I knew nothing about corporate finance, but showed up for an interview at EF Hutton and thought simply, ‘Let’s see if I can get to the second round.’ I did get the job, and soon became an expert on refinancing debt. The old hands did not have an advantage, as this was a period when the rules on Wall Street were changing. After breaking new ground and having a lot of fun, I took a role at a smaller bank outside Boston. I thought I was recruited to lead a financial turnaround, but it turned out there was a brewing investigation into mortgage fraud. Four of our people were convicted; three went to jail. One of our loan officers was even found dead in the trunk of a Cadillac at the bottom of Boston harbor.  Friends said, ‘You need to get out of there,’ but my view was, ‘No, I need to help clean this up.’ Maybe that drive came from West Point, where our class motto was ‘Serve with Integrity,’ or maybe I picked it up from my parents: I never heard them tell a lie.  

I went on to launch a series of companies, roughly one every five years.  After I turned 65, I translated my experience with refinancing into the student loan arena. We helped 30,000 borrowers reduce their payments dramatically.  My latest venture, the Aunt Betty Fund, is in the same space, but as a non-profit. We provide a platform for donors to help individuals burdened by their loans and also offer friends and family an avenue to help out.  

One of the most fulfilling things I’ve done alongside family and job came about through the invitation of George Keys (Maryland & Balliol 1970). We got to know each other when he was Vice President of the American Association of Rhodes Scholars and I was the new Treasurer. George was looking for support for a 100th anniversary event celebrating the selection of the first black Rhodes Scholar, Alain Locke (Pennsylvania & Hertford 1907). He said, ‘We need somebody to research and write on Locke.’ It was right up my alley – I love digging in archives and also cheering for the little guy. Locke was literally the little guy – only five foot three and a half – and the only black Rhodes Scholar for the first six decades of the Trust. With respect to the Rhodes community of that era, he remained a lonely outsider. At Oxford he faced terrible prejudice, not least from some of his fellow American Rhodes Scholars. Today Locke is recognized as the father of the Harlem Renaissance, but the heart of my writing was an examination of how he made his way from Central High in Philadelphia to Harvard to Oxford. Locke died in 1954 but was never memorialized. With George’s leadership, we were able to get his ashes buried in Congressional Cemetery in 2014. I was honoured to be a part of it.