John Howard Rauscher Jr., longtime Texas banker and president and chief executive officer of the firm now known as RBC Capital Markets, died Nov. 11 of natural causes at his Dallas home. He was 81.
During his career, Mr. Rauscher helped develop the firm — known at various times during his tenure as Rauscher, Pierce & Co., Rauscher Pierce Refsnes Inc., and Dain Rauscher Corp. — into a leading securities firm.
“No matter what changed in the firm, public finance remained the heart of the company,” said his son, John H. Rauscher 3d of Dallas.
The younger Rauscher said his father — whose work expanded upon the efforts of his own father, John Rauscher Sr., who founded the firm with fellow Mercantile Bank banker and bond salesman Charles Pierce in 1933 — was part of a group of people who helped shape the current Texas municipal bond environment.
“It’s something that they took from the people who really began this business in the 1920s and 1930s, and they enforced it and made it part of the way people do business here,” said John Rauscher 3d, who retired from the company last year. “People like Decker Jackson and Jim Kerley, who helped to guide First Southwest Company’s philosophy, and my father and Charles Pierce, who shaped the philosophy at Rauscher Pierce — their attitude was, ‘the client comes first.’ Those companies still do business with that attitude, and have shaped the same philosophies in the younger firms that have come up, such as Estrada Hinojosa & Co.”
The younger Rauscher said that the bond business in Texas has flourished, thanks to such groups as the Texas Municipal Advisory Council — where Mr. Rauscher had served as a trustee — and like-minded thinking about progress and customer service.
Mr. Rauscher was born in Long Beach, Calif., but moved with his family to Dallas in 1926. After graduating from Highland Park High School in 1942, he attended Kemper Military School and Southern Methodist University before serving in the Army during World War II.
He served as an Army combat engineer with British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s 21st Army Group and U.S. Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army. He was awarded a Purple Heart and served as a major in the Army Reserve until 1955.
After the war, Mr. Rauscher received a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Texas at Austin and joined his father’s investment banking and securities firm.
He went on to become the firm’s president and CEO, a position he held for more than 25 years before his 1999 retirement.
In addition to his son, Mr. Rauscher is survived by his wife, Mary Jo Vaughn Rauscher of Dallas; three stepsons, Jack C. Vaughn, Robert C. Vaughn, and David C. Vaughn, all of Dallas; a stepdaughter, Sharon V. Gallivan of Dallas; two grandchildren; and 10 step-grandchildren.
Memorial gifts may be made to the Maran Rauscher Critical Care Nursing Endowment at Presbyterian Health Care Foundation, 8440 Walnut Hill Lane, Dallas, Tex., 75231, or to the Southwestern Medical Foundation in Dallas.
