First Interstate pink slips are not all bad.

Laid-off employees get plenty of offers

Members of First Interstate Bank's agri-business lending unit were depressed last March when they learned that Wells Fargo Bank planned to break up their team when it took over First Interstate on April 1.

"They wanted to keep a small part of the unit, but not as a unit," recalled Jim Ramirez, who worked in the department.

So they took matters into their own hands.

They launched a job search - a collective job search.

One of First Interstate's agri-business customers, hearing of the bankers' plight, told Ramirez that he knew City National Bank chairman and founder Brain Goldsmith and that he would put in a good word for the unit.

"Bram called me the next day," Ramirez said. Today, Ramirez and three of his old colleagues are heading up the new agri-business unit at City National Bank.

"We were happy before, and we're very happy now," he said.

Sound like a fairy tale? There are lots of them in the wake of the acquisition of First Interstate Bank by Wells Fargo earlier this year.

While politicians were bemoaning the dismantling of L.A.'s biggest and most profitable bank, other local financial institutions and nonbank companies were busy making job offers to FIB bankers.

* Irwindale-based Home Savings of America, the largest savings and loan in the U.S., hired Brace Willison, First Interstate's former president, as its president.

* Chatsworth-based Great Western Bank, the second largest S&L in the U.S., hired 10 former First Interstate executives, including its head of retail branches, Jaynie Studenmund, to senior positions there.

* Norman Creighton, president of Imperial Bank, said the bank has brought on a couple of First Interstate middle-market lenders and is considering hiring more. "First Interstate was a quality bank," Creighton said.

Banks and thrifts are not the only companies bringing on former First Interstate people. Rosemead-based Southern California Edison Co. recently hired Lillian Gorman, First Interstate's former director of human resources, as its head of human resources and Ted Craver, FIB's former treasurer as its treasurer.

Times Mirror Corp. brought on Roger Molvar, First Interstate's former controller, as its controller. And San Francisco-based Charles Schwab Corp. has hired Steven L. Scheid, formerly a principal financial officer at FIB, as its chief financial officer.

"I think that a lot of people have landed very nicely," said Shirley Hosoi, who served in a number of executive positions at First Interstate, including assistant to the bank's chairman and CEO William E. B. Siart.

Hosoi wasn't even looking for a job when she was hired to be chief operating officer of Payden & Rygel in L.A., one of the country's largest investment management firms.

"It's a dream job," Hosoi said.

While some former FIB executives have seen their dreams come true, the flood of job seekers has been a nightmare for other bankers.

Some banks have actually fired veteran bankers to open positions for the former First Interstate executives to take, said Robert Rollo, principal of R. Rollo Associates, an L.A.-based executive search firm that specializes in financial services.

"There is somewhat of an aura about (former First Interstate executives)," Rollo said. "The people who were with the bank when it sold did survive some very difficult years."

Indeed, there was speculation during the early 1990s that First Interstate, which was then losing money and awash in real estate loan problems, might not survive.

But Siart and Edward Carson, former First Interstate chairman, cut thousands of jobs at the bank and instituted new lending policies and a new culture that stressed team work. Siart and Carson accomplished what some banking experts have called the greatest turnaround in the history of banking.

When Wells Fargo launched its hostile bid to take over First Interstate in late 1995, the L.A. bank was, next to Wells itself, one of the top banks in the country in profitability.

When it was sold, Wells paid the "highest premium ever" in the history of banking, Rollo noted. So it is no surprise, he said, that other companies have been willing to hire the executives at premium prices.

Janis Risch, director of research for Russell Stephens Inc., a downtown L.A. executive search firm that specializes in banking, conducted an unscientific survey of how many First Interstate people found jobs.

Risch found that of the more than 300 First Interstate queried, only about 15 percent of those looking for a job had not found one. "I think that's pretty darn good," Risch added.

Carl Miller, executive director of Russell Stephens, said one of the reasons former First Interstate employees are having an easy time finding work is that the economy is turning around and banks are hiring.

Also, a number of the big S&Ls in L.A. County have launched strategies to move away from the traditional thrift business of making home loans and into the traditional commercial bank business of making business loans. These thrifts have a big appetite for former First Interstate bankers.

Robert Trujillo, executive vice president in charge of branches at Glendale Federal Bank, said he has recently hired 10 former First Interstate employees and 10 Wells employees to manage branches for the Glendale-based thrift.

Trujillo said he was interested in hiring commercial bankers partially because it will help Glendale Federal in its plan to become more "bank-like."

Dan Morefield, formerly the manager of business banking for First Interstate in California, has designed the new small business banking program that Great Western introduced last week.

Morefield, Great Western's director of business banking, said he has hired eight people who worked for him at First Interstate to staff the new business lending unit at Great Western.

Morefield said he and his colleagues from First Interstate are having a great time working towards turning the thrift into a retail bank.

"There is no question that there is great personal and professional satisfaction in being able to build something from the ground up," he said.

Morefield said that First Interstate had almost a "family" atmosphere about it and he has kept up with his former employees there.

At First Interstate, "I had 145 people who worked for me," Morefield said. "Last time I checked, I had three people who stayed with Wells and everybody else who wanted a job has gotten a job."

"You know," Morefield admitted, "we are pretty lucky."