Meet & Greet

Proud to Be in Banking

The Republican side of the race to fill the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Herb Kohl of Wisconsin includes a former governor, a state assembly speaker, a former congressman and this man, longtime community bank investor Eric Hovde.

A Wisconsin native and the chairman and largest shareholder of Sunwest Bank in Orange County, Calif., Hovde says his business experience sets him apart from the rest of the GOP field. "We need citizen legislators who have spent time in the private sector and who have the skills to put our economy back on track," he said in announcing his candidacy in March.

Hovde's website touts his ties to banking. His candidate bio mentions one of his early industry plays, from 1994: "Using his life savings, he bought a controlling stake in Monarch Savings Bank. Eric turned that business around, and since that time, he has invested in several community banks around the country and created hundreds of jobs."

Hovde isn't the only banking player running for office. John Delaney, the chairman of CapitalSource, a commercial lender in Bethesda, Md., is running for Congress as a Democrat in Maryland's 6th District. The seat is held now by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a Republican.

'Culture Boy'

Ray Davis, president and CEO of Umpqua Holdings, remembers what audiences used to think when he would take the stage at investor forums in New York, back in the days before anyone on Wall Street had pinpointed the source of Umpqua's success.

"I could almost hear them saying, 'Oh no, here comes culture boy,'" Davis says. He got a lot of smiles when he shared that memory with fellow retail bankers at a recent American Banker conference, where he spoke a lot about-what else?-culture.

Don't let the ice cream trucks fool you. Umpqua's zanier ideas speak to a culture that also really knows how to steal market share. That's how Umpqua, with one of the most admired cultures in banking, has proven that culture matters to the bottom line-even if the spreadsheet jockeys still struggle with the concept now and then.

Life Saver

When physician Frank Anderson collapsed during a pickup basketball game a few months ago, it was a banker, Steve Huston, who ran and grabbed a defibrillator and delivered the shock that restarted Anderson's heart.

Huston knew where to find the automated external defibrillator, or AED, because the bank he owns-Bankwest Financial in Rockford, Minn.-had donated it in 2005 to the elementary school where the pickup game was held.

The bank had placed nine other AEDs around town through an initiative called Heart Safe Communities. Interest in the program has been reignited by Huston's heroics on the court. "I would anticipate that we'll consider additional donations," Huston says.

The doctor he saved, a 32-year-old husband and father, later learned he has a rare heart condition and has since had a defibrillator implanted, Huston says.

True Original

The first and only CFO in Associated Banc-Corp's history is stepping down this summer after 39 years with the company. Joe Selner, 65, joined Associated in 1973 as an internal audit manager and became CFO in 1983, shortly before the company went public. He's been in the job ever since, guiding the Green Bay, Wis., company through acquisitions and, more recently, helping it recover from steep losses on real estate loans. Succession planning began last summer, with Deputy CFO Christopher Del Moral-Niles getting groomed for the role.