Early Career
Although known for banking, Hill’s business outlook has been informed by early encounters with retailing. While taking morning classes at Wharton, Hill worked afternoons at a South Jersey bank owned by a local car retailer, where Hill observed the car dealer applying retail principles to banking operations, such as late opening hours. The job also brought Hill into contact with other local retailers, including McDonald's. After graduation Hill founded a real estate firm to find and develop sites for McDonalds, a task which required Hill to drive McDonald's entrepreneur Ray Kroc on scouting trips. Hill claims his experience with McDonald’s taught him the importance of standardised presentation and scale economies in retailing.
Philadelphia Magazine reports that Hill’s experience with McDonald’s led directly to the creation of Commerce Bank. Referring to the creation of Commerce, Morton Kerr, Chairman of the board of Markeim-Chalmers, Inc., a South Jersey real estate firm, and one of the original Commerce board members, observed:
“A lot of us knew Vernon from being involved in real estate at that time…He was a 26-year-old kid who called about 15 of us to a meeting in his office. I'll never forget it. He said, 'We're going to start a bank.' And he said we'd each have to put up between $250,000 and $500,000. This was 1973-who had that kind of money? But he'd arranged for all of us to borrow it. If you could put up $100,000, he got us loans for $400,000. Only seven of us didn't get up and walk out, but we still thought he was crazy.”
The deal resulted in Commerce opening its first branch in Marlton, New Jersey, in 1973.
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