James John Hopes

1930 -2022

After losing his beloved wife Angela in November 2020, James is survived by three children, Richard J., James R., and Deborah L., and two grandchildren Laura and Leslie. He was born in Moscow, Pennsylvania on March 4, 1930. He was President of his class and captain of the basketball team in both his junior and senior years of high school. He was President of the school student council at Moscow High School (now North Poconos). He was active in the Boy Scouts and continued this work through college. Jim won the Brook’s Scholarship Award and matriculated to the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, while participating in Boy Scout/Girl Scout committee events, he met Angela Manno, who would go on to become his wife of 67 years beginning on Valentine’s Day 1953.

After graduating from Penn Jim pursued a career in the computing industry which was in its early stages. After several other jobs, he ended up at J.P. Morgan Chase Bank. He was put in charge of their Automated Clearing House (electronic deposits and withdrawals) department. He spoke extensively on the subject and represented Chase on several national committees on the electronic funds movement. Jim served on the national ACH committee to produce the rules and procedures to govern processing these transactions in the United States. He served on the Executive Committee for several years and received numerous awards for his actions. The most outstanding was the Special Commendation from the US Treasury Social Security Administration for his assistance in setting up their system. He was selected by the American Banker newspaper as one of the 5 bankers to watch in the future. He established the Chase ACH as a regional ACH as a subsidiary of the Chase Manhattan Bank and became its President. Chase led the nation in ACH volume for over 40 years.

Jim was active in Church and social committees. He was on several Church Building Committees and served as President of the Trustees for over seven years. He retired to Florida in 1995 and he and his wife Angela enjoyed over 70 cruises seeing the world. He passed on his 69th wedding anniversary, Valentine’s Day 2022 to join his beloved wife forever together.

In lieu of flowers donations can be made in his memory to the American Cancer Society (donate3.cancer.org) or to the American Diabetes Association (diabetes.org).