Stanley J. Lukowski did not start his professional life as a banker, but he certainly made his mark as one.
Eastern Bank, which he helped create in 1981 through the merger of two North Shore thrifts, is now the largest bank or thrift based in Massachusetts. And as the chairman of the Massachusetts Bankers Association a decade ago, Mr. Lukowski was instrumental in creating one of the nation's first surcharge-free automated teller machine networks.
Last week Mr. Lukowski, 65, retired as Eastern's chairman and chief executive. He was succeeded by Richard E. Holbrook, who had been Eastern's president since 2001. (See story
Mr. Lukowski was Eastern's president for 11 years before being named its chairman and CEO in 1992. In the 15 years since he took the top job Eastern's assets have grown from $180 million to $6.7 billion.
But Mr. Holbrook said that Mr. Lukowski's commitment to customer service, not to size, has distinguished Eastern from its competitors. To illustrate that point, the new chairman told the story of a commercial customer who had hit a rough patch and was at risk of losing his company.
"Stan asked for a meeting with him, and the gentleman tells me he didn't know what he was going to hear from Stan. Maybe he was just going to pull the plug," Mr. Holbrook recalled. "Instead, Stan came up to him and warmly greeted him and told him, 'Whatever you need, we're behind you. We're going to see you through this.'
"The customer said that made all the difference in the world to him in terms of his own confidence and ability to move forward," Mr. Holbrook said. "He managed to get his company turned around, cleared his reputation, and became very successful."
Mr. Lukowski had been an accountant and an investment banker before getting into community banking at the age of 34. He started out in 1976 as a vice president at Salem Savings Bank and became its president in 1981, when it merged with First East Savings in Lynn to form Eastern.
In an interview a few weeks before retiring, he said that its first objective was to add heft, and that its second was to develop a niche with small businesses.
"For us to be a junior Bank of America is not going to be a successful route," he said. "We had to do something to make us unique, to do something in a special way."
Eastern has achieved that by positioning itself as "a private company serving private companies," by being a mutual with commercial bank expertise, and by understanding its customers, he said.
"I grew up in a family that owned a business," said Mr. Lukowski, who began pitching in at his family's meat-processing plant at 8 years old. "With any small-business owner, it's not just a job. It's their family's life. They want people who understand that."
Daniel J. Forte, the president and CEO of the Massachusetts Bankers Association, said Mr. Lukowski has been an active member of the trade group through "tectonic changes" for the banking industry. Mr. Lukowski was on the board from 1992 to 1999 and was the chairman for a year starting in July 1997, the same year Mr. Forte started there.
Mr. Forte said Mr. Lukowski's leadership qualities stood out when the Massachusetts General Court considered a bill to ban ATM surcharges - a hot topic in 1997.
Though some community banks wanted a ban, Mr. Lukowski favored a "free market approach" that left it up to the banks to decide whether to charge noncustomers for ATM use, according to Mr. Forte.
However, the chairman also encouraged the trade group to come up with creative ways to help to small banks better compete against large banks with vast ATM networks, Mr. Forte said. "He led us to attack the problem from different angles, and we developed one of the first surcharge-free alliances in the country."
That alliance, called the SUM program, was created for the group's members but was later opened up to other participants. Marshall & Ilsley Corp.'s NYCE Corp. now administers the program, which includes more than 200 banks and thrifts in New England and the Midwest.
