David Frey
David G. Frey
January 12, 1942 - June 14, 2023
TERM AS TRUSTEE
June 1, 1998 through June 2020
Served as Treasurer 2006-2009
BIOGRAPHY
Mr. Frey began his banking career in 1971 with Manufacturers Hanover Corporation in New York. In 1974, he returned to Grand Rapids to join Union Bank & Trust Co. founded by his grandfather in 1918. He subsequently served as Chairman of Union Bank & Trust Company and Union Bancorp, Inc., its parent. Union Bancorp merged with NBD Bancorp in 1986. Mr. Frey was the Officer in Charge of NBD Bank – West Michigan and its successor financial institutions culminating with a merger with J.P. Morgan Chase in 2004.
As s fourth generation Grand Rapidian, Mr. Frey has been an ardent and active civic leader in metropolitan Grand Rapids. He served as chair of Grand Design 2000, a capital campaign to construct the DeVos Center on Grand Valley State University’s Grand Rapids campus. More recently he co-chaired the Grand Valley State University campaign to construct L. William Seidman Center, the new home of the F.E. Seidman School of Business. From 1992-2018 he was co-chair of Grand Action Committee: to design, fund and construct: Van Andel Arena (1996), Devos Place convention complex (2005), renovation and restoration of the Meijer Majestic Civic Theatre (2006), Michigan State University’s Secchia Center (medical school) (2010), and Downtown Market (2013). Nationally, he has served in a variety of leadership capacities for the fund raising campaigns for the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has served as Campaign Chairman of both the United Way of Kent County, the Grand Rapids Community Foundation and the Right Place Program promoting regional economic development.
Frey recently retired as Chairman of the Frey Foundation, a private family foundation established in 1974 by his late parents, Edward J. Frey (1910-1988) and Frances T. Frey (1911- 1989). Mr. Frey attended Cranbrook School, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (’60), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (AB ’64, JD ‘67). Thereafter, he served as Lieutenant Junior Grade in the U.S. Navy with the 7th fleet in the South China Sea during the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal.
1982—David Frey (left), President of Union Bank & Trust with President Gerald R. Ford during the 1982 “Celebration on the Grand”, Grand Rapids, Michigan. President Ford served as moderator at a National Press Symposium. (Photo Courtesy of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library)