Local bankers hit the bricks to seek out new career paths.

After a 23-year career in banking, Brad Snodgrass decided to leave his job as assistant vice president of a large bank to pursue a career in gerontology. The 44-year-old Bellflower resident, pictured above studying an outplacement firm's job board, is now enrolled as a full-time student at Cerritos Community College and said he is having a blast.

"The younger people think I'm a professor because they open doors for me and say, 'Excuse me,' but I don't tell them any different," he said.

Snodgrass insisted he had a very fulfilling career in banking but said opportunities in the industry are becoming slimmer and slimmer. So he took the opportunity to "spread my wings."

As the nation's financial industry continues going through a major restructuring, more and more finance executives are finding themselves out of work or reconsidering their vocations.

"Clearly there is a huge wave of people coming out of financial service," said Janet Irwin, senior vice president and general manager in the L.A. office of Lee Hecht Harrison, the New York-based outplacement firm with 25 offices around the country. "Financial services is the biggest portion of our business."

She said Lee Hecht Harrison, which already has two offices in the L.A. area -- including one in Pasadena -- is opening a third office in Woodland Hills in January.

Irwin said she tells her clients that this is the most competitive job market in history -- "unlike anything they've known before."

Area outplacement directors said the average job hunt is taking between six and eight months. Two years ago, the search was closer to four months, they said.

Although the job loss in the finance industry is nowhere close to the 78,000 jobs lost in aerospace in L.A. County since 1988, the job loss in finance did not start its descent until 1990.

According to figures by the Los Angeles County Employment Development Department, local jobs in finance -- which includes depository, non-depository, security and commodity, and holding and investment companies -- fell 11.4 percent from a high in 1990 of 143,700 jobs to 127,300 jobs as of August 1992.

Most of that job loss has been in banks, according to the EDD.

The BankAmerica Corp.-Security Pacific Corp. merger alone, could lead to layoffs of between 12,000 and 20,000 workers through the end of 1993, said industry observers.

Don Livingstone, partner in charge of the Southern California banking practice at accounting firm Arthur Andersen & Co., said many of L.A. area banks are reducing their head counts by as much as 15 percent.

With Congress taking a more-restrictive stance toward banking regulation, more bank failures could be on the horizon.

A survey titled "Vision 2000: The Transformation of Banking" -- produced jointly by Andersen Consulting, the Bank Administration Institute and Arthur Andersen & Co. -- found that "employment forecasts hint at overcapacity in all financial services." It further stated, "The end is not in sight."

With announcements of major mergers continuing, the survey estimated that the finance industry employment decline could reach up to 20 percent, which translates to the loss of more than a quarter of a million banking jobs throughout the nation by the year 2000.

With such predictions, many financial executives are jumping out of finance altogether.

One banker decided to become a fireman, another bought an ice cream chain, one bought a closet-organizing company and another owns his own maintenance service, according to area outplacement directors.

Outplacement directors declined to disclose the names of these former bankers because of client confidentiality.

Michael McNeill, a managing director with Drake Beam Morin Inc., a New York-based outplacement firm, which is managing Bank of America's career centers for laid-off employees, said two to four years ago only 10 percent of its finance clientele would consider a new industry. Today, he said, that proportion is closer to 15 to 20 percent.

He said that increase is due more to a lifestyle change than desperation.

"The '80s are over," he said. "People are trying to decide what they're doing, so they're pursuing things they are passionate about. The recession was just a catalyst."

He and other outplacement executives said the reality for finance executives is that because of their background, most are sticking to their industry.

"It's simply not true that there are no jobs in finance and banking," McNeill insisted. But, he conceded, "Companies are more selective and it takes longer to fill the job."

Pat Lindh, a BofA spokeswoman, said the company's career centers have generated 50,000 job leads "in all kinds of fields" for its terminated employees. She said BofA operates career centers in L.A., Orange County, San Francisco and San Diego.

Added Gary Saenger, managing principal of the Los Angeles region of Right Associates, a Philadelphia - based outplacement firm with three offices in L.A. County: "I thought there would be a heavy exodus out of the banking industry due to the mergers and S&L disaster, but there's much less than I thought."

He said many of Right Associates' clients are aligning themselves with less-known companies; one-fourth are looking to relocate out of the area; 10 percent are going into an entrepreneurial venture; and 10 percent are going into consulting.

He said one executive with a local bank moved to the East Coast to work with a start-up computer company and increased his salary by about 15 percent.

Another executive from a local bank, he said, went to work for a money-management firm, with the opportunity of tripling his salary.

Outplacement directors said many of their finance clients have either become consultants in the banking industry, work with venture capitalists in turnaround situations, or manage new companies.

They said growth areas for local employment include telecommunications, environment and health care.