Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters

John R. Cochran III

Innovative financial executive, after graduating from Loyola University Maryland you started your career in credit card banking with the Maryland National Corporation and were a senior member of the management team that established MBNA in 1982. You developed the endorsed marketing concept that led MBNA to become one of the country’s largest direct marketers. You became the chief operating officer of MBNA Corporation and chief executive officer of its principal subsidiary, MBNA America Bank.

Devoted University trustee, a gubernatorial appointee to the University of Delaware’s Board of Trustees, you have served for 18 years as a wise and respected volunteer on the board. You led the board as chair from 2015 to 2022, a period during which the University grew in significant and lasting ways. Major accomplishments during your tenure as chair included enhancement of student access, diversity, and success as well as the rejuvenation of faculty, staff, and facilities.

Generous benefactor, the volunteerism and philanthropy of you and your wife, Patricia, stretches back to 1998, when you created the Cochran Family Foundation to support education. In 2010, you made a significant gift to help renovate the Bob Carpenter Center addition and to establish a student-athlete scholarship. In 2018, you again showed your munificence by making a gift to the University to establish the John and Patricia Cochran Scholars Fund to recruit, develop, retain, and promote a diverse faculty. A part of that gift was earmarked for the renovation of Delaware Stadium and the building of the Whitney Athletic Center for the University’s student-athletes.

Though you were not a Blue Hen by virtue of a degree, for more than 25 years, you have shown yourself to be a Blue Hen by virtue of your engagement, your generosity, and your heart.

Therefore, under the authority of the Board of Trustees of the University of Delaware, I have the honor of conferring on you, John R. Cochran III, the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. In testimony thereof, I am pleased to present to you this diploma.

Terri L. Kelly
May 24, 2025