The conference room on the sixth floor of the Renasant Bank office in downtown Birmingham overlooks City Hall, Linn Park, the Jefferson County Courthouse and Boutwell Auditorium, as well parts of the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex.

Inside the room, bank executive Tracey Morant Adams – regal, calm and professional with cellphone, black notebook (very important, as we’ll learn) and pen nearby – takes time to talk about something that’s not only part of her resume but also her persona: community responsibility, which is more than just a slogan for her personally and professionally.

Adams is senior executive vice president and chief community development and corporate social responsibility officer for Renasant Bank, and she leads a team of people spread across Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida that drives community engagement. A large part of her job is to plant and nurture “roots” in the community, literally and figuratively, under a program called “Renasant Roots.”

“That speaks to the foundation of who we are as a company. … Our roots are about community,” she said. “We are responsible for volunteerism, being present in the community, speaking on behalf of issues related to financial education and financial empowerment, as well as for many of the charitable donations and gifts that go back into the community to support the community.”

It’s important to understand the people the bank serves and to build trust with customers and clients, Adams said.

“The Renasant tagline is ‘Understanding You.’ In order to effectively support communities, we have to understand the needs of each one. My team and I work to do that from a community perspective every day.”

Tracey Morant Adams talks about her experiences and philosophy of service in her office at Renasant Bank in downtown Birmingham. (Marvin Gentry/Birmingham Times)

Country girl

Adams’ roots run deep when it comes to service.

She volunteers with organizations and institutions, including the Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham, Talladega College, Samford University School of Business, YWCA, the McWane Science Center, the Kiwanis Club and United Way of Central Alabama.

She is an active member of and international membership chair for the Upsilon Eta Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., and is on the Southern Area Executive Committee for The Links Inc.

“My whole life, I have been plugged into the community doing things because I think that is my calling – to serve and not so much to be served,” said Adams, who is in her 50s. “I began volunteering with (Harper Springs Baptist Church in Sylacauga) and other organizations. … I’ve always been involved with volunteering through church and … community giveback.”

Adams grew up in the Sylacauga and Oakdale areas of Talladega County. Her mother, Callie, was a librarian and media specialist with the Talladega County Schools system for more than 30 years, and her father, John, was a minister who worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 50-plus years.

“My father taught us – my older brother and me – the value of hard work,” Adams said. “Talladega was known for its textile mills and paper mills back in the day, as well as farming. The farming community was more my mother’s family’s side of the house. My mother’s grandfather bought almost 100 acres of land … My mother’s grandfather believed that owning land was a way to have prosperity for their family.”

Adams traces the land where she was raised to before the Great Depression’s economic downturn, when her great-grandfather purchased it.

“My ancestors used the land for both agricultural and livestock farming,” she said. “During my formative years, I learned gardening, helping to plant, gather, store and cook various types of vegetables. My appreciation for gardening remains with me today. I love beautiful flowers, shrubs and trees, and I enjoy caring for a few at my home. I also enjoy cooking fresh vegetables.”

Adams attended Talladega County Schools: Sycamore Elementary School and Winterboro High School. While most people may believe there is not much to do in rural areas, Adams was as active and busy then as she is now.

“I was in Girl Scouts; I moved up through the levels … and learned to cook during my time in the scouts. I was in gymnastics, took swimming … staying very active with those types of extracurricular activities. One of my favorites that my mom insisted upon was working with the libraries. As a girl, I began every summer reading books in order for her to determine if those were good books to be on the shelves.”

Basically, her librarian mother taught Adams to “audit”’ books during the summer: “I later learned it was her way to bolster my reading and vocabulary skills as a child,” Adams said.

Tracey Morant Adams has a passion for giving. One of her favorite books as a child was “The Giving Tree,” by Shel Silverstein. (Marvin Gentry/Birmingham Times)

“A favorite author for me then and still today is the great Shel Silverstein. His books were just magical to me. My favorite is ‘The Giving Tree.’ Even today, the simple words of that book used so uniquely by Mr. Silverstein remind me of the importance of generosity, trust and doing what is right in regard to your fellow man.”

Among her other favorite books are “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee and “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou.

Adams recalled that her Girl Scout troop leader, the late Bernice Kidd, was a mentor and one of many people who taught Adams the value of service.

“When I started in the Brownie troop, she was teaching us about service and giving back to the community,” Adams said. “I learned many good characteristics through my affiliation with scouting, and those were certainly reinforced by the teachings of my parents.”

She was in the high school marching and symphonic bands, playing the saxophone, and part of the Winter Guard as a flag twirler. She played the piano, too, at school and in church, where she was a junior usher, sang in the choir and was a part of the Sunbeams and the Red Circle, service organizations that helped to reinforce character while teaching Bible lessons and encouraging good study habits.

In high school, Adams was president of the Student Government Association, was elected Miss Winterboro High School and was valedictorian. After graduating in 1984, Adams attended the University of Montevallo on a Presidential Scholarship, which is awarded to students who do exceptionally well in school and have high test scores.

Attending Montevallo was one of the best decisions she could have made, Adams said. “It’s a great school that offers a wonderful liberal arts education. I met lifelong friends there.”

At Montevallo, Adams had a double major: management and marketing. She initially wanted to study law but realized during her freshman year it was not her passion.

“My passion was more around strategy and leading people or projects,” she said. “I did pretty well with my dual major, and I enjoyed it.”

Career woman

After graduating from Montevallo in 1988, Adams entered a master’s degree program at Temple University in Philadelphia and embarked on a career as a management trainee for AmSouth Bank. She stayed in Philadelphia for about six months before moving to Birmingham, where she enrolled at Samford University, pursued her master’s degree, and continued working for AmSouth. Adams earned her Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Samford in 1991 and was recruited by BellSouth, which eventually merged with AT&T.

Renasant Bank’s Tracey Morant Adams serves in many roles for her community. (Marvin Gentry/Birmingham Times)

“Things were good. I was happy and doing well, then I got a call one day from the head of AT&T Alabama, a gentleman by the name of Tom Hamby. He called me up and said he wanted to talk to me about an opportunity,” Adams recalled. Hamby was on the transition team for then-Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford, who was looking for a director of economic development. Adams took the opportunity.

While serving in that role, Adams worked with four mayors: Langford, acting Mayors Carole Smitherman and Roderick Royal, and Mayor William Bell.

“I think everybody should work in the public arena because you gain a different type of appreciation for the men and women who are public servants by working in that space. I did that, and I would say it was one of the best moves I could have ever made.”

While working for the Bell administration, Adams was recruited by Renasant.

“I got a call from a gentleman with Renasant Bank, and he asked if I would serve on a community advisory board for the bank. I said, ‘I would love to!’ … That was really my introduction to Renasant,” she said.

Then, while on vacation, Adams got a call from Robin McGraw, the bank’s CEO.

“He wanted to talk with me about some things that were going on at Renasant,” Adams recalled. “I was perfectly content and happy and thought I was doing a pretty good job for the city, but I knew I wanted to get back into the corporate arena at some point.”

Adams has been with Renasant Bank since 2013.

Busy days

She begins her day around 5 a.m. with exercise and meditation, and typically gets to the office around 7:30 on the days she goes into her downtown Birmingham office or her satellite office in Pelham. Because of the pandemic, she spends two or three days a week at her satellite office.

A typical day includes at least three meetings. When she gets to the office, she starts her workday by making a list. That’s where her little black book comes in; it’s where she writes down what she seeks to accomplish each day.

Most days for Adams end around 5:45 p.m. When she gets home, she cooks dinner, does some cleaning and checks email to see what she didn’t get to during the day or what presentation or meeting she needs to prepare for.

Tracey Morant Adams is pursuing a Ph.D. in educational leadership, policy and law at Alabama State University. (Marvin Gentry/Birmingham Times)

Hobbies

With her schedule, Adams rarely has time for much else, but she fits in her hobbies when she can. She and her husband, Jeff, have been married for 15 years, and she enjoys spending time traveling and having date nights with him. While she and Jeff do not have children together, she is a bonus mom to her stepson, JJ, 27.

“He is a wonderful young man, and I love him as if he were my own child,” she said. “He is something. He cracks me up. I tell my husband all the time I should write a book about his sayings. … He loves Mrs. Tracey, and she loves him.”

Adams also has two college-age godchildren: Jackson, a senior, and Trinity, a sophomore.

In her free time, Adams reads a lot, mostly for her studies in the Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership, Policy and Law at Alabama State University.

“All of my readings have been relating to shared governance in higher education because that is my area of study,” she said. “I am hoping to defend my dissertation in a few weeks, so I’ll be on a downward spiral” in academic reading.

Favorite quote

Adams recently posted a quote from Mother Teresa (canonized as Saint Teresa of Calcutta in 2016) on her LinkedIn page – “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

Asked what the quote meant to her, Adams said, “Sometimes, we think we have to do things in a big way to make a difference, but this quote reminds me that it is not the enormity of what we do that makes the difference, it’s the act of doing something important. Whether that something is big or small, every effort in doing the right thing to make things better for others is important. That one effort, or ‘drop,’ we may think is very minimal as the giver on one end may be enormous to the recipient on the other end. To me, it is these small ‘drops’ that add up to an ‘ocean’ of goodwill for others.”

This story originally appeared in The Birmingham Times.