Francis I. duPont & Co. Genealogy: Part XVI

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Walston & Co., Inc., Continued

Walston, Hoffman & Goodwin (1941)
Walston & Co. (1953)
Walston & Co., Inc. (1955)

These events seem not to have had an effect on the firm's makeup because in 1941, when the firm changed its name to Walston, Hoffman & Goodwin, Claire Giannini Hoffman herself became a limited partner of the new firm. Prior to joining Walston & Co., her husband, Clifford Hoffman, had been a partner at Schwabacher & Co. A Stanford graduate (1929) and former college football star, Hoffman (also known as "Biff") became a partner in 1936. Claire V. Goodwin, who was also a sportsman (baseball), had previously been associated with Wm. Cavalier & Co., and Oakland firm, and McDonnell & Co.

Emulating the Bank of America branch network, Walston, Hoffman & Goodwin created an extensive branch office network of its own. According to Alec Benn, "Vern Walston had located Walston & Co,'s offices near those of Bank of America throughout California, and the bank had steered customers to Walston & Co." During the 1940s, the firm expanded into the midwestern and eastern regions of the United States, taking over firms like E.J. King (1942), Eastland, Douglas & Co. (1942), H.R. Baker & Co. (1945) and Buckley Brothers (1949). As Walston took over other firms, the executives of those firms joined Walston & Co.

By the 1950s, the firm made some significant changes to its makeup, geographic location and organizational status that began to distinguish itself from Giannini's family. In 1949, Giannini died. Then in 1953, Claire Goodwin and Clifford Hoffman retired from the firm. (Hoffman had become ill that year and died in 1954.) At that time, the firm's name reverted to Walston & Co. Walston moved the firm's central office from San Francisco to New York. It became a corporation in 1955. In the 1950s, Vernon's two sons, Carl Rex (b. 1932), a University of California, Riverside graduate (1954), and Jack Hanley Walston (b. 1935), also joined the family firm. In 1963, Walston & Co. took over the firm of J.R. Williston & Beane, Inc., whose chairman was Alpheus C. Beane, formerly of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane, and who joined the firm.

Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Beane Board Room, 1943. Collection of Museum of American Finance.

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