It didn't take Brent Thompson very long to decide what he wanted to do when he learned his Wichita, Kan., bank was being taken over.
He decided to join the ministry.
"My passion for my work was dying," said the 38-year-old, who was senior vice president of marketing at Fourth Financial Corp. "You need to do what you enjoy doing."
In mid-May, three and a half months after Boatmen's Bancshares closed its acquisition of Mr. Thompson's employer, he was headed for the Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary in Colorado.
Mr. Thompson's quick switch may sound extraordinary, but he's actually just one of a cadre of former bankers who, long before their banks were taken over, decided to change careers - and had their plans in place before the ax fell.
A survey by Manchester Partners International released last week said the time spent by bankers looking for jobs after being displaced was three weeks fewer than the time reported a year ago.
Manchester, which is based in Philadelphia, said it took the bankers who responded to its survey an average of 14 weeks to find a job after being fired from their banks, compared with an average of 17 weeks reported by bankers surveyed a year ago.
Sal Vittolino, a spokesman for Manchester, said many bankers surveyed had jobs lined up before they were laid off. He said he believes banks are giving their employees more time to look for jobs by letting them know early that their positions will be gone.
Mr. Thompson said he thought Boatmen's gave Fourth Financial employees at least six months lead time to find jobs.
The annual Manchester survey of where bankers go and how long it takes them to find jobs may not be scientific, but it's probably the only poll of its kind.
Manchester polled 520 displaced bankers who were clients of its outplacement service. Only those who actually found jobs were surveyed.
The study also found that Mr. Thompson isn't alone in leaving the banking profession. Seventy percent of displaced bankers interviewed by the firm left the industry. Thirty-three percent found jobs in other financial services businesses, including brokerages, mortgage banking companies, and insurers.
Many others found jobs with manufacturers and government and nonprofit organizations. A smaller percentage went into industrieslike real estate, health care, education, and telecommunications.
Manchester said 8% of bankers - the same percentage reported a year ago - started their own consulting businesses, though fewer bankers started other types of businesses. Five percent of bankers started a small business in 1996, compared with 7% a year earlier.
Mr. Thompson is part of a group of former Fourth Financial employees who went into a variety of different industries shortly after the buyout.
For instance, William Rainey, the Wichita bank's former general counsel at Fourth Financial, took a comparable job with Payless Shoe Source in Topeka. The former chief financial officer, Michael Shonka, assumed that titletook at Cessna Aircraft Co. in Wichita.
Though Mr. Thompson's position was not going to be eliminated, he would no longer have been part of the management at corporate headquarters. Rather, he'd be one of many doing marketing for a much larger company.
Just seven months after Boatmen's acquired Fourth Financial and its Bank IV subsidiary, NationsBank Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., announced it would buy Boatmen's, raising the prospect of another round of job cuts in Wichita.
