Well-loved banker and community leader Lee Moss, who lost his battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, was honored at a Celebration of Life this week. Family, friends, fellow bankers, community leaders, and representatives from local non-profits gathered to honor a man who had a way of making everyone feel important and like they were his closest friend.
As one person said on Facebook, “There are not many people that you can honestly say you’ve never heard anything negative about, but Lee was that man.”
Born and raised in Nashville, he was a 1969 graduate of Hillwood High School, where he met the girl who would become his wife, Susan Ostroski. While in high school, his leadership skills were already shining. He was the president of his senior class. He was also a three-sport athlete, lettering in football, basketball, and track.
He kept his love of sports by officiating at high school basketball games for the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA) in Middle Tennessee for 26 years, and coaching Little League baseball for five years.
Fraternity brother and college roommate, Ron Shuffield, met Lee when they were 18-year-olds rushing Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) fraternity their first week at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK). They became lifelong friends. Shuffield tells of how Lee was a rush chair for the fraternity like no other rush chair. He traveled around the state during the summer recruiting the best and the brightest, and then mentored each of his 55 recruits during their freshman year.
Lee graduated from UTK in 1973 with a major in banking and married Susan on June 30 of that same year. Later, he also graduated from the Graduate School of Banking of the South at Louisiana State University and the National School of Commercial Lending.
He retired in 2021 after 48 years in banking. Most recently serving as President of Franklin Synergy Bank and Franklin Financial Network prior to its merger with FirstBank in 2020. Prior to that, he served as Senior Vice President for SunTrust Bank in Nashville, then Regional President for SunTrust Bank in Murfreesboro. Later, he served as Chairman and CEO of MidSouth Bank in Murfreesboro, which he helped to organize with Jack and Ben Weatherford.
A true business leader, “Boss Moss,” as his friend and colleague Dee Jernigan called him, Lee was recognized as one of the 2023 Tennessee Bankers Association Leaders in Banking Excellence. He was also honored as the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce 2019 Business Legend, the Chamber’s 2006 Business Person of the Year, 2018 Distinguished FIJI, and he was the 2004 Jennings Jones Champion of Free Enterprise Award winner from MTSU’s School of Business.
Jernigan, who worked for Lee beginning at SunTrust, joked, “Lee never met a one-hour meeting that he couldn’t turn into two.”
Making time for everybody, Lee loved people. He loved to coach and mentor, always sharing his pearls of wisdom. He had integrity and finished every job he started. He also loved to laugh and have a good time. He was known for his deadpan quips, often good-naturedly at the expense of his friends, but always so that he was laughing with them.
“Occasionally, God puts a special person in our lives and they make things better,” added Jernigan.
The YMCA’s 2012 Humanitarian of the Year, Lee was also an active leader in the non-profit community, having served as Chairman of the following boards: Tennessee Bankers Association, Ascension Saint Thomas of Tennessee, Ascension St. Thomas Rutherford, Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce, United Way of Rutherford County, Discovery Center at Murfree Springs, American Heart Association, UT Davidson County Alumni Association, the Nashville Downtown Optimist Club, and as Archon (National) President for Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity. He also served on Middle Tennessee State University’s (MTSU) Foundation and School of Business boards, as Treasurer of the Jennings Jones Foundation, Trustee of the Murfreesboro Community Investment Trust, and on the board of The Journey Home. For more than 20 years, Lee served as a guest lecturer at MTSU and UTK, teaching Financial Analysis and Business Ethics. He is also a 1996 graduate of Leadership Rutherford and a 2011 graduate of Leadership Middle Tennessee.
Lee and Susan were awarded the Liz Rhea Philanthropist Award in 2025 by Ascension St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital Foundation. The Neonatal department has been named the Lee and Susan Moss Family NICU.
Gordon Ferguson, retired CEO and President of Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford, summed up Lee’s life the best, saying that it was a life well lived filled with family, friends, and faith.
“There is no telling how many lives he touched,” noted Ferguson.
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