Chase Alumni Association

 

Beverly Highsaw McCaskill, a former senior manager at Texas Commerce Bank, died on December 15, 2024 in Houston at the age of 72.

 

Born in Rotan, Texas, she graduated at the age of 16 from Midland High School. She then entered the University of Texas planning to major in education but developed an interest in accounting, and she graduated with a BBA in accounting with honors from UT, at 19. McCaskill was hired immediately by the Big 8 accounting firm of Ernst & Ernst. She was a CPA by the age of 20. Her first audit client was Texas Commerce Bank. McCaskill also audited other firms, but, as she rose swiftly at E&E, she eventually focused primarily on the Texas Commerce Bank audit. In 1976, the bank hired her to manage their Financial Accounting and Management Accounting groups.

 

In 1982, she and her Financial team moved to the bank's executive suite in the newly built Texas Commerce Tower, along with Chairman Ben Love and CFO Marc Shapiro. Following Love's retirement in 1990, she and her team moved back to the original bank building (still referred to by many as the Gulf Building), reporting to CEO Marc Shapiro. McCaskill took on additional responsibilities, including managing Compliance, Investor Relations, and responsibility for merging with existing banks as well as buying failed banks.

 

McCaskill always had an open-door policy and would help anyone who sought her advice. She was highly regarded as a mentor, an advisor, a confidant and a trusted friend.

 

McCaskill took early retirement in 2003. She spent several years volunteering at M D Anderson Hospital in Houston following successful treatment for breast cancer. She also volunteered at The Ronald McDonald House in Galveston.

She was preceded in death by her father and her stepfather Bill Cox, both of her younger sisters and her husband of 43 years, John (Jack) McCaskill (photo), who had headed Texas Commerce Bancshares' Auditing Department and managed the Tax Department of the bank holding company. He died in 2021 following an accident at the McCaskills' second home in Galveston.

 

Survivors include her mother, Nelda Cox of Midland, two stepsons, a stepdaughter, three grandchildren, and scores of friends and colleagues from Texas Commerce Bank, now known as JPMorgan Chase Bank of Texas.

 

Memorial gifts can be made to the Ronald McDonald House of Galveston.