BANKING : Fountain Valley’s Beach Savings Loses More Top Officials

Beach Savings Bank might need to hang out a “Help Wanted” sign on its window after the latest round of departures at the small Fountain Valley savings and loan.

Ernest F. Thompson, in ill health, quit his positions as president and chief executive last week. And James E. Rott, the chief financial officer, is expected to leave soon for a private accounting practice in the Pacific Northwest.

Earlier this year, the two-branch thrift lost a controller, an assistant controller and a branch administrator.

Beach’s owner and chairman, Anaheim developer James A. Carter, said he is concentrating on hiring a new president and will let that person decide what positions to fill. Rott, he said, has agreed to stay on for up to three months to help with the transition.

In the current economic slowdown, Carter said, Beach has closed down its mortgage lending operation, which employed about a dozen people, and has reduced its assets to about $85 million, from $102 million at the end of June.

The thrift has lost so many employees that a minimum of only two remain at the S&L;’s Newport Beach branch. Internal controls, if not regulatory rules, dictate that an employee from the headquarters office go to the Newport Beach office whenever one of the branch employees goes to lunch or is otherwise absent.

Carter, who also owns Corporate Bank in Santa Ana, purchased Beach at the end of 1986. Previously, he had a tough time trying to buy a thrift. He tried for two years to purchase an S&L; in Alhambra before switching to Beach.