J. Howard Edgerton; Former Chief of Cal Fed, Prominent Civic Leader

J. Howard Edgerton, attorney, civic leader and financial executive who in his half-century with California Federal Savings and Loan built the company into the largest institution of its kind in the country, has died. He was 91.

Edgerton died Thursday in Los Angeles, said his daughter, Beverly Edgerton Adair.

The financier joined the bank in 1931 as an attorney for what was then Railway Mutual Building and Loan Assn. Within five years he was asked to take over management of the small company, and in 1937 he won a change to the current name. In 1939, Edgerton became president and chief executive officer and abandoned the practice of law.

Under his tenure, the thrift grew from assets of $5 million in 1941 to more than $6 billion in the 1970s. With assets above the half-billion-dollar mark by 1959, Cal Fed earned the title of largest S&L; in the United States.

Nationally influential, Edgerton was elected president of the California Savings and Loan League in 1946. Eight years later he became one of the youngest presidents ever chosen by the United States Savings and Loan League.

He also guided design and construction of the company’s 28-story headquarters building at 5680 Wilshire Blvd., completed in 1965. It was the tallest building in Los Angeles. He retired from the Cal Fed board in 1980.

Concurrently with his Cal Fed work, Edgerton maintained an active career as a civic leader adept at raising funds to help abused children, hospitals, museums and political causes.

In 1990, when receiving a humanitarian award from the Children’s Bureau of Los Angeles, Edgerton was introduced as “a man who has spent his whole life in service to the community.” He was founding chairman of the Children’s Bureau Foundation, which supports services for more than 50,000 abused and neglected youngsters.

Edgerton was also a president of the St. John’s Hospital and Health Center Foundation and served on the Santa Monica hospital’s board.

He was long influential in Exposition Park and its institutions.

He served on the board of the 6th District Agricultural Assn., which governs the state park near the USC campus; he was chairman of the boards of the California Museum of Science and Industry and the California Museum Foundation (now the California Science Center Foundation) and was a member of the Coliseum Commission.

“I don’t know what we ever did to deserve people like Jack Kent Cooke, Carroll Rosenbloom and Al Davis,” Edgerton candidly told The Times in 1987 during Davis’ move to take the Raiders football team out of Los Angeles. “They are difficult and arrogant individuals.”

Long active in politics, Edgerton earned appointments from Republican and Democratic officeholders, including Gov. Goodwin Knight, Los Angeles Mayors Norris Poulson and Tom Bradley, and Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon.

He was named to the Community Redevelopment Agency, chaired the National Governors Conference in Los Angeles in 1966, was Los Angeles area chairman of the National Alliance of Businessmen, and was a member of the Presidential Commission on Financial Structure and Regulation.

Edgerton also served on the boards of the Los Angeles Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America and the Southern California Visitors and Convention Bureau. He was named California Civic Leader of the Year by the National Assn. of Accountants in 1968.

Born in Sulphur Springs, Ark., Edgerton grew up in Prescott, Ariz., and Los Angeles, where he graduated from the private Harvard School and USC and its law school. He was a civilian flight instructor for the Army Air Corps during World War II and maintained a commercial pilot’s license for 35 years, flying himself to business and government meetings around the country.

A Mason and a Shriner, Edgerton was invested with the Order of St. John by Queen Elizabeth and was past grand master of the United States Chapter of the International Order of St. Hubertus. He was also a member of the Order of St. Lazarus and active in the Wilshire Rotary.

Edgerton is survived by his wife of 67 years, Catherine; his daughter, Beverly Adair; a son, Russell Howard Edgerton; 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.