3 Bank Chiefs Defeat Odds, Stay at Helm : Key to Longevity: Stability, Growth

The deans of Orange County’s banks are J. B. Crowell, Ronald Rodgers and Paige V. Simpson.

All three managed their banks in the era of heavy regulation and survived the pitfalls of deregulation and the depressed economy of the early 1980s.

“The reason I’m still here is that we’ve had 12 straight years of profitability,” said Crowell, 52, who has guided Eldorado Bank in Tustin since it was formed in May 1972. “Usually it’s the losses that make for changes.”

He pointed out that presidents at smaller independent banks are usually under heavier pressure to produce good results because most of the directors have major stakes in the banks and get nervous with poor or flat earnings.

Directors at the big banks, he said, have little stock investment, and there is less incentive to show a strong performance. Crowell owns 7% of Eldorado’s common stock.

Crowell, who was with a major bank, First Interstate, for 14 years, believes two of the keys to success are maintaining a relatively trouble-free loan portfolio and keeping noninterest expenses low.

Upward Mobility

As a testament to his reign, seven of his former executives have become bank presidents elsewhere.

For Simpson, 67, the secret of the success at Citizens Bank of Costa Mesa, which opened in December, 1972, lies with the local residents who bought stock and stayed with the bank.

“We started with nine employees and six are still with us. We started with six directors and four are still with us,” he said.

“People have said we’re too conservative,” he said. “We’re not flamboyant. We have nice growth, nice earnings--nothing exotic. We are conservative in our policies and in our lending. We just put in automated teller machines in the last six months. But profits are up 47.6% this quarter.”

No Change From Sale

Shareholders recently sold the bank to Australian industrialist Richard Pratt for $12 million, but customers will not notice any change, said Simpson, who will remain the bank’s leader under a three-year contract. He said Pratt wants the bank to “stay the way it is.”

Rodgers has headed Bank of Newport in Newport Beach since it opened in March, 1972. With $169 million in assets at end of year, Bank of Newport has grown to be the fourth largest Orange County-based bank.