Ralph Ferrell, bank official
Ralph Harris Ferrell III, a banker and Parks and People Foundation board member, died of Parkinson’s disease complications Dec. 1 at St. Joseph University of Maryland Medical Center. He was 76 and lived on Greenwood Road.
Born in Richmond, Va., he was the son of Ralph H. Ferrell Jr. an attorney, and Lydia H. Goodwyn, a homemaker. He earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Virginia.
He joined the training program of the North Carolina National Bank and worked in its personnel division. He held banking posts in Greensboro and Charlotte, N.C., and later joined the Piedmont Corp. He moved to Baltimore in 1983.
He became executive vice president for commercial banking at the old Equitable Trust Co. After the old Maryland National Bank acquired Equitable in 1990, he was named chief credit officer and executive vice president.
He formed Ferrell & Associates and was a consultant and adviser to financial institutions. He helped form and launch EnerBank in 2002.
Mr. Ferrell participated in LEADERship, a program of the Greater Baltimore Committee for young leaders in Baltimore’s business and nonprofit community. He also was a founding board member of the Parks & People Foundation, where he was treasurer and served on the finance committee.
He was worked with Baltimore Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound Program. He was also a chair of the Academy of Finance in Baltimore.
He was a golfer and tennis player. He kept a sailboat on the Magothy River and sailed weekends on the Chesapeake Bay. He also had a home in the Henlopen Acres section of Rehoboth Beach, Del.
A funeral will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at Old St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at Charles and Saratoga streets, where he served on the parish vestry.
Survivors include his wife of 25 years, Nancy Ratcliffe, a commercial mortgage banker; a son, Harris Ferrell of Forest Hills, N.Y.; two daughters, Stuart Ferrell of New York City and Rebecca Smith of Ashburn, Va.; two brothers, Bill Ferrell of Westport, Conn., and John Ferrell of Richmond, Va.; a sister, Lydia Ferrell McVay of Glenside, Pa.; and four grandchildren. An earlier marriage to Rebecca Russell ended in divorce.
—Jacques Kelly