Joyce Rice

First American National Bank, BMI

Joyce Rice grew up in Nashville, the daughter of a restaurant owner and a homemaker. Directly after high school she took a job at the Federal Reserve Bank in Nashville, because her parents thought banking was respectable. She left the workforce for several years following the birth of her son, but returned in an entry-level position as a teller at First American National Bank. She worked her way up through the various areas of commercial banking (all the while taking night classes), ultimately earning an appointment to vice president in 1986.

After proving the potential of lending to the music business, Joyce designed and opened First American's Music Row office in 1983, pioneering the city's first commercial bank satellite office catering to the entertainment industry. She was the first to champion royalty-advanced loans, revolutionizing music banking.

In 1990, she brought her unique expertise to BMI, where she continued her work in country, pop, and Christian genres; she retired in 2005 as director of writer/publisher relations.

Throughout her career, Joyce advised many of Nashville's most acclaimed songwriters, publishers, and executives, and spear- headed a variety of charitable and community projects that took Nashville artists to a wider audience. She helped form the Nashville NATAS chapter, serving as a board member of the Mid-South Regional Emmy Awards and as a NATAS national trustee. Joyce was a longtime board member of the Mark Collie Foundation, and co-founded and chaired the Mark Collie Celebrity Race & Concert, which provided the funds for the first chair for diabetes research at Vanderbilt. An alumna of the inaugural Leadership Music class, she was instrumental in the naming and dedication of Chet Atkins Place, and was a founding board member of the W.O. Smith Nashville Community Music School.