No need to wind him up

The call usually comes in early October. "Remember," Thad Woodard always says, "Warmth for Wake is gearing up! We're kicking off on Halloween, and we've had some people carve pumpkins. We're going to send one down there!"

To the annual fuel assistance drive (32 years old, with $1 million raised in that time) the 64-year-old president and chief executive of the N.C. Bankers Association (a sponsor for Warmth) brings his usual wide-eyed, earnest enthusiasm, speaking of that cause as he does of a multitude of others with passion.

He bends that head with the thick thatch of gray hair, dips his chin a bit, measures his words and speaks with dramatic pauses. It's rather like a surgeon giving you the prospects before they wheel you off to the operating theater. You figure it must be important.

And often, of course, it is. When the calls go out in the Raleigh community (he grew up here, class of '64 at Broughton High) for a charitable endeavor, one inevitably goes to Woodard. His resume lists 38 types of civic activity, and would list more but for the fact that he wanted to hold it to a page.

He is of course the chief advocate for the state's banking industry, which he defends vehemently at a time when the industry's national popularity is running dead-even with chicken pox. North Carolina, he says, is different: "Traditional banks did not cause this problem. They want to lend money. They want to be active in the community. Being in North Carolina is the greatest blessing we could have."

Selling that message takes him to hollows and hamlets in the state, to meetings throughout the world. It brings him to the political arena, where he has to be deft and bipartisan. Bankers supported then-incumbent U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth in his 1998 re-election bid against John Edwards. Within hours of Edwards' victory, Woodard was helping organize a fund-raiser for the new senator, saying, "We've got to help Johnny."

But it's not that area that seems to fire him up as much as the thought of making a difference in the town where he was raised, where his father was a member of the U.S. Board of Paroles as he was growing up in the Fallon Park area. "A great life," he says. "My father and my mother always taught us to give back. I guess that's where it comes from."

Sometimes, when it comes to causes, he backs winners. Other times, he rubs against the grain. He was an early advocate of opening up Fayetteville Street, years before it happened. He worries about water conservation. He raises money for his alma mater, Pfeiffer University. He's helped Hospice, the Boys & Girls Clubs, the Tammy Lynn Center, the campaign to build the Falls of Neuse Dam, the Wake Education Foundation.

He's also pushed the idea of renaming the airport the "Wright Brothers International at RDU." That one didn't go far and some people got mad at him, but he kept going. "Why can't we be different? Why can't we have something that people from all over the world would talk about? The Wright Brothers flew here! We should be proud of that."

Then there's the ongoing campaign for free parking in downtown Raleigh to encourage visitors. "I don't know a single shopping center that charges for parking," he said.

There is no "off" switch on Woodard, something of which anyone who knows him is well aware. He does not ever back away from promoting Camp Challenge ("the greatest thing in the world!"), a summer program to offer youngsters education about how to handle their finances. They are described as "high achieving, low-resource" students, who could benefit from avoiding the credit traps and debt problems many naive consumers face.

Whenever he can get a celebrity to draw attention to Camp Challenge, he does it. Barack Obama posed with some of the kids when he passed through town in his presidential campaign.

And once, Woodard met actor Robert De Niro at a resort, and in the next issue of the association magazine, "Carolina Banker," the caption on a picture of Woodard and De Niro said they were talking about Camp Challenge. "We were!" Thad tells a skeptical if friendly cynic. "I swear we were!"

You know, it's probably true.

"I just like people," he says of his explosive energy. "And I like the idea that we all should try to help other people. And with Raleigh...it needs effervescence. I see colors. I see activity. We don't want to be beige about everything. Raleigh needs some pop." And Thad Woodard.

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