Changing of the Guard at S&L; Bailout Agency : IN: William Taylor Is Known as a Forceful Regulator Who Dislikes Controversy

William Taylor, a former college wrestling star, may soon go to the mat to take on the nation’s savings and loan mess, the most expensive financial debacle in U.S. history.

If so, friends and colleagues say, the respected banking regulator will probably attack the problem quietly and forcefully, while working smoothly with the myriad agencies that have a hand in regulating and cleaning up the nation’s thrift problems.

President Bush on Thursday recommended that Taylor replace L. William Seidman as chairman of the Resolution Trust Corp. and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The RTC was formed last year to clean up the nation’s S&L; mess, while the FDIC is the guarantor of deposits in banks and thrifts. Bush said he was “very high on” Taylor to take over Seidman’s job.

If Taylor gets the job as expected, he probably will keep as low a profile as he can, friends and colleagues said. That would be in contrast with the outspoken Seidman, who irked top Bush Administration officials with his public statements on the soaring cost of the thrift mess, which by some estimates may total as much as $500 billion during the next 30 to 40 years. However, Taylor may lack Seidman’s skills in working with Congress and the press.

Taylor has made it clear that he dislikes publicity and controversy, which may not be easy given the scrutiny that the thrift bailout is getting. Kenneth Guenther, executive vice president of the Independent Bankers Assn., joked that Taylor’s background as a wrestler “will come in very handy since he will have to take a lot of hard falls to the mat.”

Taylor had been chief banking supervisor at the Federal Reserve Board until he went on leave in February to take over as acting president and chief executive of the RTC Oversight Board, which sets policy for the RTC. Before that, Taylor was mentioned as a possible candidate to succeed M. Danny Wall as head of the Office of Thrift Supervision, the main thrift regulator.

Officials at the Oversight Board said Taylor was unavailable for comment Thursday. But he has a reputation for being candid and witty, once describing his job as a bank regulator as “an exciting, obscure job.”

Taylor is a highly conservative regulator. William R. Weber, a Washington banking consultant who as a former Treasury Department and Senate Banking Committee official got to know Taylor, called him “the most respected bank regulator in town.”

Taylor has been wary, for example, of giving banks some of the expanded powers they want. He also is considered a zealous advocate among regulators of requiring banks to maintain high levels of capital--money that protects against losses. His obsession with that financial measure is said to be so great that he once carried a computer disk in his pocket listing capital levels of major banks.

“He has a great reputation. The most impressive thing about him is that he seems to always have a command of details and the big picture at the same time,” said J. Michael Shepherd, senior deputy comptroller of the currency.

Taylor also has plenty of crisis experience. Michael Bradfield, former general counsel for the Fed, recalls that Taylor was especially important in coordinating the Fed’s response to major thrift runs in Ohio and Maryland in 1985.

Taylor, who turns 51 next month, grew up on the West Side of Chicago, eventually moving to the suburb of Melrose Park. His father, a Scottish coal miner, died when Taylor was 10, and his English-born mother died shortly after he started college.

Taylor attended Cornell College, a small liberal arts school in Mount Vernon, Iowa, that is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. He majored in economics, worked in the campus dining hall and was one of the school’s top wrestlers before graduation in 1961.

After graduation, he went to work as a bank examiner with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, leaving government service from 1968 to 1976, when he worked for a bank and real estate firm before being hired by the Fed as a supervisor in 1976.

Taylor professes to have no hobbies outside spending time with his family.

One bank regulator recalled that Taylor once drove a “hot red” sports car until trading it in on a nondescript Chevette a few years ago.

Times Staff Writer Tom Redburn in Washington contributed to this story.

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