Harrison Frankland Tempest died on July 21, 2025 in Naples, Florida. He was 88. A graduate of Evanston Township High School outside of Chicago, he attended college on a football scholarship, playing wide receiver for LSU, before transferring to Miami University, Ohio. A proud Sigma Nu, Harrison stayed close to his fraternity “brothers” for life. He later graduated from Ohio State Law School and joined the FBI where he became fluent in Arabic at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA. After four years serving in the FBI he joined the First National Bank of Chicago as a corporate lawyer where he was instrumental in starting branch banking in Illinois. He later moved his wife and two young children to Beirut, Lebanon to run the First Chicago office there. Subsequently he transferred to Sydney where he opened the first American bank in Australia, and then to London where he grew the bank’s international presence. He returned to the U.S. to become Executive Vice President of the Bank of California, moving the family to San Francisco where he took up sailing—the beginning of a lifelong passion. He ended his career as Chairman and CEO of ABN/AMRO North America taking him full circle back to Chicago. He retired in Naples, Florida, to the home he loved.
Harrison loved his family dearly and made it a priority to bring everyone together for trips, cruises, and holidays. He loved adventure, sailing his boat down the coast of California, flying with his pilot’s license, skiing the Alps, and traveling the world. A lifelong tech enthusiast, he championed early investment in IT at the banks he led before it was in vogue to do so, and at home was excited to be the first on his block to have a VCR.
He was a loyal husband to his Miami of Ohio sweetheart, Marilyn, (a “Miami Merger”) and a very proud father to his two children, Michael Tempest and Nicole Tempest Keller, loving father-in-law to Susan Faulkner Tempest and Robert Keller, and devoted grandfather to Harrison (“Hunt”) Tempest, Chandler Tempest and his wife Courtney Schulz Tempest, Katie Keller, and Kendall Keller. He was enormously proud to have attended each of his grandchildren’s college graduations. Harrison epitomized integrity and the Midwest work ethic and continued to work on home projects until his last day. He loved his employees at his banks, proudly knowing every person by name, and always looked out for the underdog, having risen up from modest roots of his own. He hoped to be remembered as someone who did as much as he could starting with so little. May we all do some work today in honor of Harrison. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
Author: gqlshare
https://www.chicagotribune.com/obituaries/harrison-frankland-tempest-naples-fl/
