Banker Saw ‘Time to Move On’
David DeVol, who resigned under pressure from directors at Rancho Bernardo Savings Bank last week, doesn’t seem much rankled by his sudden joblessness: He’s taking a week to go skiing in Mammoth in early February, leaving his job search in abeyance until his return.
DeVol’s departure as president was sparked by Rancho Bernardo Savings directors’ desire that the company become more aggressive in its lending and their feeling that DeVol’s management style was too conservative.
“I consider the conservative versus aggressive analysis a great compliment,” DeVol said in an interview last week. “And if I’m going to err, I’ll do it on the side of being conservative (because) the conservative institutions are the survivors.”
He was nothing if not philosophical about his resignation. “I’ve had (nearly) three years to develop my philosophy and communicate it to others, and now it’s time to move on.”
DeVol took exception to the perception that minuscule fourth-quarter earnings (the bank reported a profit of only $6,300 in the period) helped lead to his departure. “They took loan loss reserves, paid large bonuses to the staff and paid my bonus for 1986 and put it in the fourth quarter,” he said. “So 1986 (figures) will look better.”
Mission Federal To Expand
Mission Federal Credit Union officials think they’re in a win-win growth mode.
The only crucial decision is which way to grow, according to Richard Hartley, Mission Federal’s senior vice president and director of marketing.
The $208.9 million-in-assets credit union has outlined seven growth scenarios for the next three to five years. Officials won’t disclose the cost of the expansion but acknowledge that it will run “million of dollars.”
At issue, said Hartley, is whether to expand Mission Federal’s 14 full-service branches by one or two a year, peaking at 25; close the branches and open one large operation center, or cut back to six or seven full-service branches and augment them with a couple of dozen small satellite offices or 40 to 50 small kiosks throughout the county.
The growth strategy is based on the assumption that Mission Federal can easily double its 48,000-membership, according to Hartley.
Time Learning From Experience
Last week’s announcement by Time Inc. that it would stop publication of its Picture Week--test marketed in 13 cities, including San Diego--isn’t the first time that the giant publishing company has called a halt to a periodical.
In 1983, Time canceled its TV Cable Week after losing a staggering $47 million in five months. And in 1977 Time test marketed Women magazine but withdrew it after the results were unfavorable.
In addition, Time is still tabulating the results of its test marketing of Home Office, a prototype magazine for people who work on computers in their homes.
Offered Time spokesman Michael Luftman, “We have learned from all of our experiences.”
Grapefruit 45 Moving Some Operations
Believing that U.S. Postal Service officials haven’t given them a fair shake in their legal tug of war over Grapefruit 45 diet plan television commercials, management of Carlsbad-based World Communications will transfer some of its shipping and fulfillment operations to Utah.
“With some exceptions, we feel that we have been unable to get adequate cooperation from some postal service officials who appear to have little interest in servicing our account. . . .,” a spokesman said.
The Postal Service last year detained nearly $4 million worth of checks and money orders from Grapefruit 45 customers. The government claimed that the company had violated a previous consent agreement that prohibited World Communications from advertising claims about any ingested weight-loss product.
World Communications officials have since alleged that the detention of funds was at least partly motivated by a personal vendetta by a San Diego postal inspector.
The company’s corporate headquarters will remain in Carlsbad.
