New leadership team set at local office for Trust Co. of Tennessee
Andy Muldoon, a banker and trust officer for nearly four decades in Chattanooga, is retiring as senior vice president of the Trust Co. of Tennessee on June 30.
For nearly a decade, the local operation of one of Tennessee’s biggest trust companies has been headed by Muldoon, a veteran banker and trust officer who returned to Chattanooga in 2015 after heading the Atlantabased SunTrust Banks’ $35 billion-asset personal asset management group.
Muldoon first came to Chattanooga in the early 1980s to work at the former American National Bank. Several of the former trust officers at American National Bank, including Fred Speakman Jr. and James Wood, helped open the Chattanooga office of Trust Co. of Tennessee in 2012, and Muldoon joined with his former colleagues three years later after he decided to return to Chattanooga.
“When I decided to leave SunTrust, I wanted to get back closer to clients, which is what I was doing when I was in Chattanooga,” Muldoon said during a recent interview at the Trust Co. of Tennessee’s office in the Volunteer Building in downtown Chattanooga.
Although Speakman and Wood previously retired and Muldoon will step aside this summer, the Trust Co. of Tennessee is maintaining at least some of its personal ties to the former American National Bank with the addition of William Probasco as an associate relationship manager. Probasco is the grandson of former American National Bank President Scott L. Probasco Jr. and joined the Trust Co. when he returned to his hometown three years ago after working as a marketing director for the New York Yankees.
As part of a new generation of leaders of the Chattanooga office, Tracey Smith joined the company last year as relationship manager. Smith previously worked for 14 years as an account manager for Mutual of America Financial Group.
The Chattanooga office will be headed by Zach Hurst, a vice president and managing director for the Trust Co. of Tennessee. Hurst, a former financial advisor for Morgan Stanley, joined the Trust Co. of Tennessee in 2017 and has been a managing director at the local office for the past three years.
The Trust Co. of Tennessee began in Knoxville in 1987, specializing in helping individuals, families, business owners and nonprofits plan strategies for their financial goals. Across Tennessee, the Trust Co. has grown to include about 120 employees operating out of offices in Knoxville, Chattanooga and Johnson City and manages over $4.8 billion in assets.
“Our highly personalized approach allows us to intimately understand what success means to each of our clients and to build a lifelong relationship that fosters success,” Hurst said.
The Trust Co. of Tennessee assists clients with qualified retirement plans, investment management, wealth management, trust and foundation administration and estate planning. Muldoon said the Trust Co. has focused on serving the financial and succession planning for wealthy families and also has developed niche in helping people who have won personal injury and other damage awards from top trial lawyers around the country to set up irrevocable trusts to invest and disperse such funds over time.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6340.