Ralph White, fresh out of college, managed branches of the American Express International Banking Corporation in Okinawa and Vietnam under contract with the U.S. Treasury. In 1973, he joined The Chase Manhattan Bank and worked as a business development officer in Thailand and Hong Kong. While in Thailand, he was temporarily assigned to Vietnam to close the bank’s Saigon branch during the fall of Saigon, for which he was awarded the organization’s highest honor: Chase’s President’s Award. In 2009, he founded and continues to serve as chair of the Columbia Fiction Foundry, a writing workshop for alumni of Columbia University, where he earned an MBA.