Send This Story
Passing The Torch
Milton Jones has a passion for diversity – and helping youth.
by Tom Barry
May 30, 2008
A
s a kid growing up in Atlanta, Milton H. Jones Jr. was a prolific reader, thanks to his
mother. A gentle taskmistress, Helen Jones insisted that her son read a book a week in the summer,
plus bone up on textbooks for the next school year.
Mother knows best.
"I read about the lives of a
lot of leaders who helped shaped my thinking today," says Jones, finance services executive and
Georgia president at Bank of America and also a major figure on the Atlanta civic front. "She
motivated me to want to do it."
As the age of segregation was dying around him, the young Jones drew lessons from the likes
of George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin
Luther King Jr.
Today, at age 55, Jones talks with a historian's flair about his admiration for Carver's
scientific advances (his "focus on analytics"), Washington's practical approach to driving change,
and Roosevelt's steely resolve to pursue her many causes, despite relentless criticism.
"We don't have the same conditions today that those people faced, but we still have
challenges that their principles apply to," he says.
Indeed, the early lessons took. Over a 31-year banking career, Jones has worked to promote
women and people of color, even breaking a few glass ceilings himself along the way. Outside the
office, he's been involved in an array of civic activities, typically aimed at furthering
opportunities for the young and disadvantaged.
His philosophy: One generation must pass a suitable torch to the next, and failure to do so
is not an option.
"I've benefited from the investment of time and effort by people I probably never even met,"
Jones says. "So I, too, have a responsibility to pass things on."
One major instrument is a weeklong event held each fall. Jones chairs the Bank of America
Atlanta Football Classic, the annual Tennessee State-Florida A&M game at the Georgia Dome that
raises money for the 100 Black Men of Atlanta's Project Success program. The initiative mentors and
tutors girls and boys in grades 4-12 and also funds college scholarships. All told, nearly 3,200
students have been served and more than 200 scholarships awarded.
Beyond a game between longtime rivals, Football Classic events include a town hall meeting
on African-American health issues; college debate; health, college and job fairs; and a scholars
parade on Peachtree Street. So far, the event has raised $2.6 million for Project Success and $6
million-plus for the universities.
The YMCA of Metropolitan Atlanta has long been another focus for Jones. His involvement
dates from the 1950s, when he swam and played basketball at the Butler Street branch, where his
parents were active. He signed on as a YMCA volunteer in 1983.
Through the years, Jones has headed several capital campaigns for the Metro Atlanta YMCA,
and he chaired the organization's board of directors 1994-1996. Today he co-chairs the leadership
gifts committee for the Metro YMCA's new $84 million Wave II fundraising campaign.
"He's been a terrific ambassador for us, a strong and effective leader who has served on
lots of committees and has helped us with our strategic planning," says Fred Bradley, president of
the YMCA of Metropolitan Atlanta, whose membership is three-fifths female.
Bradley describes Jones as a deft coalition builder who "knows Atlanta inside and out," plus
he brings mega-clout to the table as a representative of financial giant Bank of America.
"He works to bring people along with him, but he's also very sensitive to other points of
view," Bradley says.
In 2001, Jones received the Bransby Christian Leadership Award, the Metro Atlanta YMCA's
highest volunteer honor. "Next to my faith, no other organization - of all the organizations I've
been in - has had such a positive and lasting impact on me," Jones said at the time.
In his civic roles, the word "chairman" often precedes his name. Currently Jones also chairs
the board of trustees of the Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. - where many black health
care professionals are educated - and the United Negro College Fund's audit committee.
Jones says three primary goals drive his volunteerism.
"It's working to make sure that young people are focusing on the fundamentals - developing
those basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills," he says. "It's also about giving them access
to opportunities outside the classroom they might not be able to afford otherwise.
"Some of the greatest experiences I had growing up were in a little day camp for the
children of working people," he says. "You can pick up a lot of life skills in places like that.
Third, it's about providing students with access to higher education."
Sallie Adams Daniel has known Jones for three decades and once worked for him during her own
27-year career at the bank. She says bank officials tabbed Jones early as a rising star.
"What's made him successful is that he's a hardworking, detail-oriented, numbers guy who's
also very people-oriented," says Daniel, now chief development and diversity officer for the
Troutman Sanders law firm. "And Milton has a real passion for Atlanta. When he commits to a civic
activity, he'll give 110 percent. He loves being active in the community."
Jones and his wife, Sheila, live in Midtown. They have two grown children, Milton C. and
Tiffany.
Home today is not all that far from northwest Atlanta, where Jones grew up. His father was
an assembly line worker for Lockheed, helping build such planes as the C-130, C-5A and C-141. His
mother was a public school secretary and co-founder of the Georgia Association of Education
Secretaries. Little wonder she was big on summertime reading.
The senior Jones eventually became a Lockheed supervisor after winning a discrimination
claim he and several others employees filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission.
"They'd been discriminated against and should have been promoted to supervisor earlier," his
son says.
Historic figures may dance in his head, but Jones says his real heroes are his parents and
older sister, Miltona.
"My father taught me to finish anything I started and never give up," he says. "My mother
taught me that working hard over the long run would be the pathway to success. Miltona taught
special education for 40 years in inner city schools in Atlanta. I've always admired her commitment
to young people. We have a strong family, and we're very close."
Jones attended St. Joseph's High School downtown, and then won an academic scholarship to
the University of Notre Dame.
"I liked the academic program, the size of the school and its traditions," says Jones, a
die-hard Irish fan. "Notre Dame was all-male at first, but fortunately it went coed during the time
I was there."
After college, Jones worked in public accounting for three years before joining the bank in
1977 and starting what's been a high-flying career, one buoyed by his self-deprecating,
down-to-earth manner and dry sense of humor.
Jones has held various senior finance positions at Bank of America. In one recent three-year
period, he led the bank's Six Sigma qualify initiatives.
His current portfolio is thick and wide ranging. It includes responsibilities for
operational risk, change management, process excellence and technology platforms for the bank's
Chief Financial Officer Group, plus oversight of the company's financial systems, supply chain
management and customer-level profitability reporting.
No matter the position, promoting diversity has been a career constant.
"I think we all have something to offer, and having a variety of viewpoints leads to better
solutions," he says. "You're more likely to get that variety not only by having diversity but also
by promoting inclusion, where people believe their viewpoints really matter. People perform better
when they feel they're connected to something, whether it's a city or a company or an
organization."
On racial and gender fronts across society, Jones says much has been accomplished, but much
more remains to be done.
"It helps a lot for young people to see senior executives who are women and people of
color," says Jones, who once chaired the bank's Global Diversity and Inclusion Council. "It gives
them greater faith that they will have opportunity, too."
Adds Jones, "Likewise, it helps to see business owners who are women and people of color. As
a company, we take great pride in the fact that we've been honored now for a sixth time [by the
Women's Business Enterprise National Council] as one of the nation's best companies at seeking
suppliers from businesses owned by women. That's all progress, and important progress."
Jones began his community work by mentoring youth while in high school and at Notre Dame and
then serving on an Atlanta zoning review board soon after college. Cue up some Jonesian
understatement.
"I guess I was 23 back then," he says. "I've been kind of active ever since."
