San Francisco-based Transamerica Corp.'s highest-ranking African-American executive has resigned after disclosing he fabricated key portions of his résumé.
The resignation of Bill Simms, president of the newly created insurance products division in Los Angeles, marked an abrupt ending to a successful 25-year career at the financial services company.
"It's a sad day for Transamerica and a sad day for Bill," said Thomas Cusack, executive vice president of Transamerica and president and CEO of the Transamerica Life Cos. in Los Angeles.
Simms was a rising star at Transamerica. In announcing his most recent promotion, Cusack said, "Under his direction (in) the past nine years, Transamerica's reinsurance operation grew to become No. 1 in the industry."
Simms could not be reached for comment; Cusack and other Transamerica officials were guarded in providing many details about the events leading to Simms offering his resignation on May 12.
But the Charlotte Observer reported that Simms told his first lie, that he held a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California, in an effort to move into Transamerica's management ranks in 1974. Simms told the Observer that other fabrications included statements that he:
? Earned a master's degree from USC.
? Won a gold medal in the 1968 Olympics, and had run track with O.J. Simpson while at USC.
? Was the only survivor from his four-man high-school relay team, often saying his other teammates died violent deaths on mean inner-city streets.
The tangled web of falsehoods began to unravel when a resident in Charlotte, where Simms headed Transamerica's reinsurance division for five years, called the daily newspaper to challenge an article that cited Simms as a 1968 Olympic gold medalist in the 4x100 relay.
Lying about the college degrees was his professional undoing.
"The new fact for us was his college education," said Cusack, who learned of the resignation when he spoke with Simms by telephone while in Beijing.
"We knew he was not an Olympian athlete," Cusack said. "We just assumed it was someone blowing a horn for him in Charlotte."
Simms told the Observer that his decision to lie about his degrees was "not a racial issue."
But in discussing his educational claims, Simms told the Observer: "It was needed to get started, no question. It would have been difficult to have risen to this level."
Simms' resignation stunned business and political leaders in Charlotte, where the 52-year-old executive played a highly visible role in the fast-growing city's civic life.
His accomplishments in Charlotte included becoming one of 14 owners of the city's NFL expansion team, the Carolina Panthers, and helping to raise $4 million for a running track -- named Transamerica Field -- at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
"My own view about it is what he did here was real," Hugh McColl Jr., CEO of Charlotte-based Nations-Bank Corp., told the Observer. "He's been a hell of a good civic leader and did well running his company.
"I think the people in Charlotte liked Bill for who he was here," said McColl, "not for something he did or didn't do 25 years ago."