OBITUARIES / PASSINGS / Michael Wise

Michael Wise, 64, a key figure in the 1980s savings and loan scandal, jumped to his death April 8 in Florida.

Wise jumped from the ninth level of a parking garage at Tampa International Airport, said Henry Poage, a spokesman for the Hillsborough County, Fla., medical examiner’s office. Wise was taken to a hospital, but died in the emergency room.

Wise had served as chairman of Denver-based Silverado Savings and Loan Assn., whose 1988 collapse attracted attention for its $1-billion cost to taxpayers and the makeup of its board of directors, which included Neil Bush, son of then-Vice President George H.W. Bush. A jury acquitted Wise of criminal charges in connection with that failure, but he was banned from banking for life.

He later pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $9 million from investors in an Aspen, Colo., mortgage business and served 3 1/2 years in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan.

After his release from prison, Wise moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., where he worked for the parent company of CFIC Home Mortgage.

Born Aug. 31, 1944, in San Francisco, Wise spent most of his early years in Kansas. He graduated in 1967 from Emporia State University in eastern Kansas and was a clothing salesman before working his way up the ladder at a savings and loan in Emporia.