News

In memory of Tom Hannon

'Pioneer of the off-premise ATM industry,' 'strong-minded gentleman,' 'one of the grandfathers of our industry' and 'fierce competitive rival but friend and kindred spirit.' All true, but there was more to Tom Hannon.

February 4, 2004

Tom Hannon is larger than life -- even in death.

That's what makes this one of the hardest things I've had to write. The wily ATM veteran, 61, passed away on Jan. 24.

"Pioneer of the off-premise ATM industry," "strong-minded gentleman," "one of the grandfathers of our industry," "truly a legend" and "fierce competitive rival but friend and kindred spirit" were some of the comments folks e-mailed to me about Tom when they heard of his passing.

I didn't know Tom all that well. As one of the original entrepreneurs who helped jumpstart the retail ATM industry in the early 1990s, he was one of the people I turned to for information when I began covering ATMs in late 1998. Always willing to patiently walk me through the particulars of how his business worked, he was also unfailingly enthusiastic about it.

When I asked Tom if he'd pose with Roscoe, he said: 'Aw hell Ann, I don't see why not. He's sitting right here in a basket on my desk.' Those who visited the Hanco offices were well acquainted with Roscoe.

Not until later did I discover that "patience" was not an attribute most folks associated with Tom.

No B.S.

Ken Paull, Lynk Systems' executive vice president of sales and marketing and the former vice president of sales and marketing for Triton, remembers the first time he met Tom, who had taken his business to another manufacturer. Paull was sent to coax Tom back into the Triton fold.

"He chewed my butt out, then proceeded to outline all of the reasons why he left Triton," Paull said. "When I came back and told him what I could and couldn't do for him, we were able to work it out. He was a tough customer, but it was always in the interest of his business and his customers."

Paull also recalled when Tom balked at paying shipping costs for ATMs. When Paull explained that Triton could not modify its policies, Tom's succinct reply was "Bullshit."

"He was always very demanding with his vendors," said Neil Johnson, president of International Merchant Services (IMS), another longtime Triton distributor. "But it was all for the good of the industry."

Later, after Tom established a retail ATM business in the UK, Paull got a call from a member of the British financial services industry who had just attended his first meeting with Tom. When the subject of the surcharge came up, Tom said in no uncertain terms that it was needed to drive the British ATM market forward. The Brits weren't so sure; they didn't think the UK's ATM users would accept it.

"When I called Tom, he said that (the Brits) would be back in a year thanking him for his advice," Paull said.

"He was a very passionate and forceful man," said Terry Turner, managing director of the UK business, Hanco ATM Systems. "When he walked into a room, even if there were 200 people there, you knew it. You couldn't help but listen to him."

Probably the closest I ever came personally to feeling Tom's ire was when I picked up a news item from a British publication detailing consumer groups' objections to Hanco's plans to collect a surcharge at ATMs it deployed at branches of the British Post Office.

"Now Ann, you know some of these sites are in rural areas. We're providing the machine, the installation and a 24-hour help desk. You know as well as I do they're not going to be able to support a free ATM," Tom said to me in a phone call the same day I posted the item on ATMmarketplace.

Excited in the UK

Tom had more knowledge about the retail ATM business in a fingernail than I had in my entire body, but I knew he was right about the fees -- many sites just don't have the volumes to support a machine. I explained to him that I had posted the item only because I thought it illustrated continuing concerns about surcharges in markets outside the U.S.

Tom wanted a chance to outline his side of the Post Office deployment story, which I happily provided. The March 2002 contract, with right of first refusal on more than 7,000 locations, was one of his biggest coups to date in the UK. He had a hard time containing the excitement in his voice when he talked about it.

"I think he found the UK market exciting," said Norma Wayco, Lynk's senior vice president. "He liked being on the leading edge again in a market where off-premise ATMs were new."

Tom's exit strategy was well established when he sold his portfolio of 2,500 machines to eFunds for $11.4 million in 2002. By then, Hanco ATM Systems had become one of the first five independents accepted into Link, the UK's national ATM network, and had already installed some 1,750 machines.

"He went over there and invested a million dollars of his own money in the UK," said Paull. "He leased a distribution center and made sure that service and all of the essentials were in place. He didn't do anything half-assed."

"I knew when he sold that he was never going to retire -- and I was right," said Doug Falcone, chief executive of New Jersey-based ISO Access to Money.

Falcone, who served on Triton's sales and marketing advisory board with Hannon, said, "After paving the way for many of us in our industry, he went to the UK and re-wrote the book on how to build an ATM company. He dominated the UK just two years after setting up shop -- what an achievement."

Perfect pitch

Wayco and others remember Tom's salesmanship. In the early '90s, before establishing Hanco Systems in Atlanta, Tom sold scrip products for Lynk. Wayco remembers accompanying him on a sales call and sitting for hours as two merchants, who were not native English speakers, pored over a contract. "Tom never lost patience with them," she said.

"He knew how to sell; ultimately that's what our business is about," said Paull, who recalled that at least one Triton distributor would forgo a sale if he found that Tom was personally involved. "He'd back off because he knew it was unlikely he'd win the deal."

Johnson, of IMS, said he "didn't bother" expanding into the Southeast for many years because of Tom's commitment to customer service. "He was providing quality processing and service, and that's what we were selling. I always felt it made more sense to go where the competition was lousy, where people weren't providing the kind of service we wanted to provide."

One person swayed by Tom's pitch was Turner. "We met in the summer of 1999, and he explained to me what the business opportunity was," Turner said. "I realized within about an hour-and-a-half that we could really make it happen."

Tom's energy level "did not stop, almost until the day he died," Turner said. "We were in Romania the week before he became ill."

Family man

The flip side of Tom's well-known bluntness was his kindness, said Turner, who noted that Hannon was "generous to a fault" and enjoyed cooking meals for the Hanco ATM Systems staff. "He was quite a complex character, really."

While Tom was a fierce competitor, he was an honorable one, said Johnson. "If I called Hanco to service a machine for me, I knew I didn't have to worry about them stealing the machine from that account. If we made an agreement, I knew he wouldn't stab me in the back."

Tom's devotion to his family impressed many peers. Several of his seven children have been or are currently involved in the family business. Son Todd will succeed Tom as chairman of the Hanco Group. Son TJ will continue to serve as executive vice president, and Travis will leave a position with accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to become a non-executive director of the company.

"As important as anything else he did, Tom raised some great kids," said Johnson, who employs several of his own children at IMS. "The true quality of his legacy was leaving behind men and women who could stand on their own and be respected by their community and this industry."

"Together, we're going to accomplish his vision," said TJ Hannon. "Moving forward, the management style will be more participative than it was in the past, but the vision will be the same."

"The industry and the world will be a less interesting place without him," said Paul Stanley, chief executive of rival UK independent Moneybox Services. "In spite of being fierce competitive rivals, I regarded Tom as a friend and kindred spirit."

Included In This Story

---

Triton Systems

Triton FI based products • NO Windows 10™ Upgrade • Secured locked down system that is virus/malware resistant • Flexible configurations - Drive-up and Walk-up • Triton's high security standards • NFC, anti-skim card reader, IP camera and level 1 vaults are all options • Triton Connect monitoring • Lower cost

Request Info

Learn More