The buttoned-down executive: Donald Crowell maintains conservative tradition at successful brokerage Crowell Weedon.

While a young man at Stanford University, Donald W. Crowell had big plans.

However, returning to his native Los Angeles and taking the reins at Crowell, Weedon & Co., a brokerage firm founded by his father and George Weedon in 1932, was certainly not a part of those plans.

Instead, Crowell, about to graduate with an MBA in finance and having just met the woman who would become his wife, envisioned a career with First Boston & Co. in San Francisco, where he had been working part-time.

But his life changed direction a few months before graduation when his boss at First Boston invited him to lunch. Instead of a job offer, the boss told Crowell that while he wanted to have the young man on board, there was something he wanted to say, really had to say, as he thought so highly of Crowell's father.

"'If you don't go down to that firm, it's going to die, just like some other firms,' and he named some," tells Crowell, now 58, sitting in the corner office of Crowell, Weedon in downtown Los Angeles. "He was correct; those other firms did die, but Crowell Weedon didn't."

Many times since, Crowell says he has thanked his old First Boston boss, because Crowell Weedon -- a profitable L.A. brokerage firm that spells conservative with a capital C -- has not only survived but thrived under his leadership, continuing the string of profits that extends over the last 61 years.

Every single year.

The privately held partnership, with more than 400 employees and more than $100 million in assets, operates in a world of tradition and restraint, concentrating on its niche of the brokerage business, avoiding risky ventures and imposing strict cost controls. It is Southern California's largest regional independent brokerage firm and one of the area's oldest.

Although some may criticize the firm as too stodgy or conservative, Crowell says the company's focus on its niche business has insured survival.

"Every competitor we had when I started out in the business has either merged or gone out of business," says Crowell. "It's surprising to me that in Los Angeles, a major financial center, that could happen."

Crowell Weedon has a loyal client base and serves, in some cases, the financial needs of a fourth generation of California families. This emphasis on serving clients is something Crowell reiterates over and over.

"Wall Street always seems to be trying to find something to sell the investing public. Our business is really a very simple business," says Crowell. "It may require complex electronic gear, but it's simple. We are in the business of serving people. Our job is to preserve assets and make them grow."

At 6 feet 3 inches, Crowell is a tall man who speaks slowly. He is detail-oriented, often going back to elaborate on an point he has made 15 minutes ago. A cautious perfectionist, Crowell rarely raises his voice but sometimes clinches a fist to make a point.

Crowell and his wife, Suzanne, have two sons: one works for Crowell on the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange and the other works in advertising for non-profit companies.

A San Marino resident for the past 28 years, Crowell lives minutes from the Huntington Gardens. He grew up in Beverly Hills and attended Beverly Hills High School, spending his free time surfing and skiing.

Crowell says to relax, he still enjoys body surfing and barbecues with good wine. Mentions of Crowell and his wife can be found in newspaper society columns, attending parties at the Huntington Library and California Club. He supports the Republican party and was described by a peer as the kind of guy "who buys all his clothes at Brooks Brothers."

His glasses are heavy dark tortoiseshell and he is at home in the firm's recently redecorated traditional offices: dark mahogany wood, thick cream carpets and green upholstered furniture. Located at One Wilshire, the place is an echo of Wall Street or Boston, but with Southern California haze filtering in the windows while outside helicopters circle downtown.

It is hard to tell the story of Crowell, Weedon or Don Crowell without talking about company co-founder Warren Crowell, described by many as a warm man who "just made you feel good to be around him." A lengthy obituary in the Los Angeles Times when he died in 1990 described Warren Crowell as an "honored civic leader and philanthropist," who gave countless hours to the University of California at Los Angeles and was a building founder of the Los Angeles Music Center and a founding member of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

"The father was impeccable," says one long-time member of the local brokerage community.

"I never heard anything negative either personally or business related. Everyone admired him," the source says. "That's one of Don's problems -- he's fighting an image that's impeccable, and it's not fair because his father lived in another era, a different set of circumstances."

Even Don Crowell acknowledges the difficulty of following in the tracks of a local legend.

"No matter how good a job you do, and I think we've done a good job, you always have a certain feeling or complex. You feel that others perceive you've had a softer touch because of the family relationship," says Crowell. "Nothing could be further from the truth. I've worked 10 times as hard as other people."

Crowell calls his father a "very fine man, my best friend," and says his goal has always been to be as fine a man as his father.

While growing up, Crowell says that he knew his father was proud of him, although on the job there were "hardly any compliments, maybe for fear someone was listening."

However, Crowell tells of a time "several years ago out of the blue, I was having dinner with my dad, and he pulls out this box and says, 'You've done a remarkable job.'" In the box was a gold Swiss watch, which Crowell proudly displays by pushing back a white shirt cuff.

"It was his way of saying 'good job.' It was the fuel I needed to get through the next 10 years," he says.

Strong fuel indeed.

Crowell's firm now has a strong and vibrant municipal bond department, more than 125 brokers in eight local offices, a research staff of five analysts following 80 companies, many of them local, and a burgeoning corporate underwriting practice headed by Harold Harrigian. The company is a market maker in more than 80 companies traded over-the-counter and more than 300 listed equity securities. Crowell Weedon is known for its team of specialists who operate on the Pacific Stock Exchange floor.

Since Crowell took over leadership of the firm in the 1960s, he has consciously steered Crowell Weedon in the direction his father and Weedon set out -- an emphasis on the bottom line, not the top, a strong sense of integrity and fiscal conservatism.

As an example of this "conservatism," Crowell begins to laugh as he tells of the time his dad's partner, George Weedon, was playing golf with an associate who kept baiting Weedon for investment tips.

Finally, exasperated on the 18th green, the friend said, "Now, George, tell me. You must have at least one hot tip."

But Weedon said for hot tips, his friend should go to E.F. Hutton. "We don't deal in hot tips. We specialize in long-term investments," said Weedon.

Crowell Weedon sponsors Wall Street Week on local public television and advertises on radio, emphasizing the firm's conservative nature.

While several bankers in town say Crowell doesn't compete with the big New York firms for large financings, Crowell wants to be listed on more underwriting prospectuses.

"We would like to do more underwritings, only because we have a talented group of people," says Crowell.

He says competition for deals has grown increasingly fierce, with larger national firms becoming more aggressive and willing to do the local, smaller deals, Crowell's niche business.

"If I was a company thinking about going public I would want to talk to a good regional firm like us," says Crowell. "People should feel just as comfortable with a regional firm. We're going to break our neck for a local client. We'll see them at church and at the local YMCA."

The company's first offices were on Spring Street downtown near the old Los Angeles Stock Exchange, where brokers and bankers met for lunch at the Stock Exchange Club and exchanged stories after work over drinks at local watering holes. Then, truly one had a sense of Wall Street of the West.

Now, nearly all of Crowell's early competitors have either failed or merged out of business. The Wall Street giants, such as Morgan Stanley & Co. and Goldman, Sachs & Co., have moved into town and brokerages are scattered throughout the city -- downtown, Beverly Hills and Westwood. There is little sense of community or local watering holes.

"Gradually over the years, through mergers and people leaving the business, our financial community in Los Angeles just disintegrated," he says. "We really don't have a financial community any more."

When asked why Los Angeles has never had a local brokerage firm achieve national prominence, Crowell characteristically hesitates.

"That's a good question," he says. "We would like to be doing more (underwriting) business. The reason we aren't is that the big Wall Street firms are doing more and they have a big presence here."

Crowell says his firm has survived because it gears expenses and overheads for the lean times and keeps business steady, without peaks and valleys.

"Our business was founded 61 years ago by two of the finest men that I know, both conservative by nature," says Crowell, when asked if he is ever tempted to take the firm in a different direction.

"I wouldn't think of anything different. I'm just sorry the two founding partners aren't here to see what we've done."

Snapshot

Donald W. Crowell

Age: 58 Native of: Beverly Hills Resident of: San Marino Education: M.B.A. in Finance from Sanford University