BANKING/FINANCE

New Pioneer President: Pioneer Savings & Loan in Newport Beach, Orange County’s smallest and fastest-growing thrift, has hired Kate Keller St. Clair as president and chief executive. She replaces Anne Bacon, who left two months ago to head a Las Vegas thrift.

Though she has been in the thrift industry since 1972, she has also traveled with the Pacific Chorale, one of the professional groups that calls the Orange County Performing Arts Center home. She said she’ll continue to sing with the group. St. Clair has worked for more than a year at the Costa Mesa office of the Resolution Trust Corp., the federal agency charged with managing and liquidating failed S&Ls.; She has worked for some of the county’s thrift leaders, including William D. Davis, a former commissioner of the state Department of Savings and Loan, and Fredric J. Forster, president of ITT Federal Bank in Irvine.