If at First You Can’t Stay Retired, Try It Again, El Camino’s McDermott Figures

With his share of the proceeds from the March sale of El Camino Bank securely in hand, D.W. (Bill) McDermott will step down Friday as president of the Anaheim-based bank and make his second attempt at early retirement, it was announced Monday.

McDermott, 61, will be replaced by Robert Ucciferri, executive vice president and chief administrative officer at the bank’s sister institution, Citizens Bank of Costa Mesa. Both banks are owned by Citizens Holdings in Newport Beach.

El Camino also hired Larry Sallinger as its senior vice president and loan administrator, filling the vacancy created when Robert Perlick resigned 3 months ago to join an engineering firm. Sallinger, 45, held a similar position at National Bank of Southern California in Santa Ana.

With more than 12 years at the helm of El Camino, McDermott had one of the longer reigns as a bank president in Orange County. Most presidents of independent banks typically leave--or are told to leave--after 2 or 3 years.

McDermott had spent 29 years at what is now Norwest Banks of South Dakota when some California friends, one of whom was an El Camino Bank director, suggested that he move to Orange County.

“I always had wanted to get involved in the California business community,” he said. “I thought it was a good place to make a good living.”

Though he said it felt strange to leave Norwest and the security of a pension, he said the opportunity to work at a California bank and such incentives as stock ownership lured him to the West.

“The goal was to build the bank to where it would be a good asset for a sale,” he said. His performance in aiding that growth eventually helped him to accumulate a 5% stake in the company that owned the bank.

When Citizens Holdings bought the company for $17.5 million, McDermott began counting the days to retirement. His share, more than $800,000, “contributed greatly” to his decision to retire early.

In the early 1980s, he had tried to retire to Aberdeen, S.D., where his son and daughter live. He thought he was ready for it.

“The first winter that came along changed my mind,” he said. He and his wife quickly returned to Southern California, and he returned to his old position.

This time he plans to remain retired. About 3 years ago, the couple bought a home in Palm Desert, where they will live in the winter and spring. They are also buying a home in Aberdeen, where they will spend the remainder of each year, he said.

For Ucciferri, 52, of Costa Mesa, the job at El Camino Bank will be his first as a bank president. A 10-year veteran of Citizens Bank, Ucciferri had become the right-hand man of Paige V. Simpson, president of Citizens and one of the parent company’s directors.

“I’m not going to change it much--El Camino is one of the best performing banks in Orange County,” he said. “My main focus will be to generate more loans.”

With a background in commercial lending, Ucciferri said he plans to increase El Camino’s commercial loans “in a slow, methodical way.”