Tramm Hudson

Tramm Hudson, Director

Tramm Hudson is a retired Sarasota banker, U.S. Army officer, and well-known community leader who has spent over 30 years sharing his leadership experience in banking, finance, economic development, and strategic planning with several organizations in the Sarasota-Manatee region.  

A resident of Sarasota since 1986, Hudson has held several diverse leadership and advisory positions, including Chairman of the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, Trustee of Manatee Community College, Chairman of the Out-of-Door Academy, Chairman of the Committee of 100, Chairman of the Sarasota Memorial Public Hospital Board, a past elder in his church, and board member for the United Way and the Sarasota Family YMCA, among others. He is a director of Trust Companies of America and Caldwell Trust Company in Venice. 

He has been influential in the political arena, serving three terms as chairman of the Republican Party of Sarasota County and as a delegate and alternate delegate to the 1996, 2000, and 2004 Republican National Conventions. In 2005, he served as chairman of Workforce Florida, the governor-appointed board that oversees labor and job training programs statewide, and in 2006, was a Republican candidate for Congress in Florida's District 13. 

A native of Montgomery, Ala., Hudson graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1975 as a distinguished military graduate. He served as a Cavalry officer in Germany for three years and continued in the Army Reserves after his active duty. He commanded an Infantry Company in the early 1980s and served in several staff positions at the battalion and brigade levels. He retired from the Army Reserve as a Lt. Colonel in 1996.  He earned an MBA from Emory University in Atlanta. He and his wife, Sarah Thompson Hudson, have three grown children and four grandchildren. 

The Story of How Tramm Became a Board Member of Caldwell Trust Company 
I first met Roland Caldwell, founder of Caldwell Trust Company, in 1986, shortly after moving to Sarasota following NCNB’s acquisition of Ellis Bank. As the bank’s new commercial banking executive, I was introduced to Roland as an influential customer and successful investment advisor. We immediately hit it off, and that first lunch at the old University Club marked the beginning of a lasting friendship. Roland was a brilliant and highly successful investment advisor who became my mentor. As the more experienced financial professional, he was someone I naturally turned to for advice about business strategies, the local business community, and county politics. One piece of investment advice he shared has stayed with me ever since: “Only invest in those things you know best.”

In the early 1990s, our paths crossed again as Roland and his son, Kelly, were building Caldwell Trust Company while Steve Kunk and I were starting Enterprise National Bank. When I first met Kelly, Roland asked me to take an interest in his son and be a “Dutch uncle” to him. Years later, Roland and Kelly asked me to join the Caldwell Trust Company board. It has been an honor to serve ever since, and I have tried to keep the promise I made to Roland—to be a trusted friend and advisor to Kelly and to support the Caldwell family and the company Roland founded.