Community West Bancshares Announces Retirement of Chairman of the Board.

Business Editors

GOLETA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 1, 2000

Community West Bancshares (Nasdaq:CWBC) today announced the retirement of John D. Markel as Chairman of the Board.

Michael A. Alexander, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Community West Bancshares and Chairman of the Board of Community West's subsidiary, Goleta National Bank, has been selected to succeed Markel as Chairman of the Board of the holding company. In addition, William R. Peeples, has been selected as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Community West Bancshares. All three are founders of the Company.

In announcing his retirement, Markel stated, "While I remain a very committed and significant investor in Community West Bancshares, my current business activities require my presence out of California for long periods of time. As it became obvious that I could not continue with both of these responsibilities, I began working closely with Michael Alexander to ensure a smooth and seamless transition. As the company has now successfully addressed its outstanding regulatory issues and has also made strong initiatives to implement the strategic plan outlined in February of this year: trimming lower growth operations and focusing our attention on the high growth areas of SBA Lending and Consumer Finance, this seemed the appropriate time to announce this change in the Board's leadership.

Markel continued, "With the impending sale of our subsidiary, Palomar Community Bank, it is only fitting that the Chairman of the Board of Community West Bancshares' primary subsidiary, Goleta National Bank, should become the Chairman of the Board of the holding company as well. Having the same person chair both boards will serve to streamline decision making and should have a very beneficial effect on the company's ability to implement the strategic plan.

"Both Michael Alexander and Bill Peeples are extremely talented and knowledgeable individuals who bring extensive and valuable business expertise to Community West Bancshares. In addition to being Chairman of the Board of Goleta National Bank for the past eight years, Michael has been Chairman of the Board of UC Wireless (formerly Utilicom Corporation) since 1994. He is also Chairman of the Board of Trinity Children and Family Services. Formerly he was Director of Programs at Delco, a General Motors Defense subsidiary. Bill Peeples is Chairman of the Audit Committee of Community West Bancshares. He has a BA in Business Economics and an MBA with an emphasis in Finance. He has served six separate Biomedical firms as either President or Chief Financial Officer. He was instrumental in taking several of those companies public.

"We have forged an excellent team here at Community West Bancshares. As they say in sports, we have a lot of bench depth. We have come through a difficult time. But now, with the distractions behind us, we are extremely well positioned for the future. I leave knowing that this team will continue to build on the very strong foundation for growth that we now have in place."

Michael Alexander, newly selected Chairman of the Board, added, "I want to thank John Markel for his tremendous contribution to Community West Bancshares since the founding of the company and particularly for his leadership of the past 18 months during such trying times. I want to emphasize, however, that although a change in leadership has taken place, the commitment to investigate every means of maximizing shareholder value remains as the top priority of the community West Bancshares Board of Directors."

Company Overview

Community West Bancshares, a financial services company with headquarters in Goleta, California, originates loans across a broad spectrum of local and national markets. The company currently has two subsidiaries. Palomar Community Bank has a full service branch located in Escondido, California. Goleta National Bank (GNB) has two full service branches, one in Goleta and one in Ventura, California. GNB is one of the Nation's largest SBA lenders with loan production offices located in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada. The principal profit generators of the company are core banking with net interest margins, Mortgage lending and Consumer Finance with fee income and Small Business Administration (SBA) lending with fee income.

Safe Harbor Disclosure

This release contains forward-looking statements that reflect management's current views of future events and operations. These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to the company as of the date of this release. It is important to note that these forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to, the ability of the company to implement its strategy and expand its lending operations. Furthermore the company will have certain restrictions placed on its operations by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency until it deems that it has substantially complied with the letter agreement signed by the GNB Board of Directors. The company has attempted to incorporate these restrictions into its business plans and it believes that they will not impact the organization's earnings ability into the future.