John W. Kercheval, III

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Professor John William Kercheval, III is a prominent American financier who almost single-handedly created the financing aspects of the aerospace & defense business as they exist today.

[edit] Early Life

John Kercheval was born to Captain John W. Kercheval, II, USN, and to Carolyn Ann Booth Kercheval on August 21, 1965 in Arlington, Virginia. His parents separated in 1981 and his father died in 1986.

Growing up, he lived in Northern Virginia and Charleston, South Carolina. He attended the exclusive Porter-Gaud School in Charleston and graduated from J.E.B. Stuart High School outside of Washington, DC. There, he was the captain of the swim team, state champion swimmer in multiple events, and a member of the National Honor Society, The Key Club and various other social and academic and organizations.

[edit] Education & Career Highlights

In 1983, he started his freshman year at The University of California, Berkeley, living in Berkeley’s prestigious Priestley Hall, eventually graduating in 1987 with a degree in chemistry and having been elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Between 1991 and 1993, he returned to The University of California’s Walter A. Haas School of Business Administration earning an MBA in Finance and Operations.

While still a senior at the university, he joined Genentech, Inc. in South San Francisco as a research associate working primarily in the areas of complex protein purification and development. He continued in this work until 1988.

He later joined Hambrecht & Quist as an associate in its technology corporate finance unit, was promoted several times, ultimately to associate vice president. While at H&Q, Kercheval found that the bank was functioning on a transactional formula. That is, the bank acted almost solely as a relationship banker. He believed that the formula should be modified to move it into more of a "transactional factory." To that end, he adjusted his efforts and the efficiency of his own transaction flow through the relevant funding mechanisms was improved, and, although beneficial, this did result in a significant increase in revenue.

In 1994, he relocated back to the east coast and, after two years working for a regional merchant banking firm in Washington, and having completed nearly one hundred successful corporate finance transactions in various industry groups over time, he left the financial services industry group to join the Orbital Sciences Corporation as the founder of its financial planning and analysis department. He was eventually seconded to its high profile subsidiary, ORBCOMM as its treasurer.

At ORBCOMM, within six months, he raised $170MM in high-yield debt for the venture organization (note: ORBCOMM was owned and backed by the Orbital Sciences Corporation and Teleglobe of Canada). The rapid completion of such a highly complex, unsecured transaction of this type in such a short period of time raised a considerable amount of interest in the aerospace industry and led to his effecting a succession of subsequent transaction closings over the next five years.

Indeed, it now appeared that he had found his niche. His desire to run a transactional factory coincided much better with the needs of the aerospace and defense industry in which one had large organizations with huge capital costs and in which the successful completion of a transaction was far more related to the financial engineering efforts surrounding the issue rather than the creating a certain amount of emotional hype around the company itself.

He next joined the giant European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, NV as it US financial representative. There he continued to arrange complex international financings for sophisticated aerospace manufacturing and launch operations.

By 2005, he was arguably the most prolific financier in the aerospace/defense industry group, having closed nearly sixty large transactions, put together multiple domestic and international financing programs, constructed the largest, and probably only, single operating lease for the construction of an entire constellation of spacecraft and effected numerous other smaller projects.

He continues in this business today and, in 2004 was appointed to the faculty of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business Administration, where he continues to lecture to this day on capital markets and financing topics at both the undergraduate and MBA level.

Never married, Professor Kercheval lives in McLean, Virginia.

[edit] Sources

Marquis Who’s Who in America, 2006 Diamond Edition The San Francisco Business Journal, various issues 1988-1993 The Washington Business Journa'l, various issues 1988- Georgetown University- Multiple website (www.georgetown.edu) citations.