Former Thrift Regulator, One-Time NCUA Foe, to Head Seattle FHLB

SEATTLE – The Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle announced yesterday that James Gilleran, the former director of the federal Office of Thrift Supervision, will retire in April as its CEO, after a two-year work-out of the troubled FHLB. Gilleran will be succeeded as CEO by Richard Riccobono, the Seattle Bank’s chief operating officer, who also came to the Bank form the OTS, where he clashed with NCUA over conversions of credit unions to mutual thrifts. Riccobono, who served as acting OTS chief after Gilleran’s departure, followed his boss to the Seattle Bank, where the two worked to turn-around the institution, which was then under supervisory agreement with its own regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Board. The supervisory agreement was lifted in January and the Bank has resumed paying dividends to its 380 members, including 75 credit unions. It was as acting director of OTS in the summer of 2005 that Riccobono clashed with NCUA as the credit union regulator held up the conversions of credit union giants Community CU and OmniAmerican CU to mutual thrifts. In a congressional hearing where NCUA Chairman JoAnn Johnson was grilled by critical lawmakers, Riccobono said he believed NCUA was intentionally making it difficult for credit unions to convert to thrift charters.