Markiesha Thompson,
Associate Editor,
Monitor

A chance encounter between two old Korean War buddies in the 1970s led John Deane to a long career within equipment finance. Working for the Marine National Exchange Bank in Milwaukee, the original home city of the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association before it moved to Washington, D.C., Deane was tasked with finding a line of business in which the bank was not yet involved. While investigating equipment finance, Deane enlisted someone from Equilease’s bank partner program to do a presentation to his vice president, not knowing the two men had been in the same platoon during the Korean War and not seen each other since then. This encounter led Deane and the men to connect over lunch and several drinks. After building the relationship, Deane wrote a white paper that the bank accepted, encouraging it to sign a contract with Equilease and beginning Deane’s career in equipment finance.

In 1997, Deane co-founded The Alta Group with equipment finance industry pioneers Norm Chapman, John Giddens and Bill Montgomery. Alta has grown to become a preeminent advisory firm within the industry. With more than 70 professionals located around the world, including parts of Asia, Europe and Latin America, where leasing was

less known, Alta advisors have helped introduce best business practices and industry standards. Deane retired as CEO of The Alta Group in December 2020, but he remains active in the equipment finance industry as an outside director of GreatAmerica Financial Services in Cedar Rapids, IA.

Being involved with the ELFA early in his career allowed Deane to form strong connections, expand his horizons and broaden his knowledge by meeting other industry leaders and being an active member. His involvement with the ELFA — which included numerous roles, such as a member of the board, the executive committee and chairman for a two-year term — gave him opportunities to travel to 56 countries around the world.

But when it comes down to it, Deane says the people of equipment finance were the motivating factor during his career, “The people in the industry are bright as the dickens. It’s fun to compete against them,” Deane says.

Deane spent many of his early days attending industry meetings, seminars and conferences, board meetings and committee meetings, putting him in exciting environments in which people were sharing experiences with each other and creating a strong knowledge base for the association and industry overall.

“What I found really attractive about equipment finance was having an opportunity to do things that other people hadn’t done and doing it at a young age — helping build something,” Deane says.

In addition to co-founding The Alta Group, Deane previously served as a partner with Amembal, Deane & Associates and president of Banc One Leasing, Great Western Leasing (and its predecessor, Nevada National Leasing Company) and MarineBanc Leasing during his more than five-decade long career span, allowing him to witness some major changes within equipment finance.

“The industry has always been welcoming to bright and aggressive people,” Deane says. With the impact of implementing new technology, as well as the industry’s larger reach for diversity and participation, including hiring more women and minorities to leadership roles, Deane has witnessed progress and growth within equipment leasing, even when it was still new to the banking industry. He also contributed to the work of the Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation over the years as a visionary leader who developed relevant industry research and served as a member of the foundation’s Industry Future Council.

Although he stopped attending association meetings after his retirement, Deane says the industry has reached a level of maturity in its lifecycle. About 20 years ago at an ELFA Executive Roundtable, Deane heard one of the featured speakers compare the life cycles of industries and businesses to the life cycle of a human being. The speaker explained that businesses are “born, experience toddlerhood, adolescence, maturity, old age and then death.” The concern, Deane says, is that you don’t want a business or industry to get too far out into that life cycle of maturity because then you’re no longer attracting the right amount of capital or the right number of personnel.

Deane says this industry has done a “remarkable job” of working hard to keep climbing back down the ladder to a young adult stage where there’s some level of knowledge and experience but still a great level of enthusiasm and energy. “It’s not the same business it was 30 years ago,” Deane says. “But the biggest success that the industry has achieved is to maintain a point in the life cycle where it’s still very energetic, still very committed and still very relevant to the economy.”

Now retired, Deane found the transition to retiree to be a period for time awareness. “If you’re captaining a major battleship cruising through the ocean, those things don’t turn on a dime. It takes a while to slow down or it takes a while to change course,” Deane says. Coming up in a time where there was no such thing as a five-day work week or eight to five schedules, as well as working when pay was not salaried but based on time spent in an intense work climate, Deane experienced a different transition once he retired. It has been a good adjustment. “Now I don’t always have to concentrate on what I should accomplish today, but maybe more on enjoying what I am doing,” Deane says.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Markiesha Thompson is associate editor of Monitor.