NEW ENGLAND
Northeast Bancorp of Lewiston, Maine, has named Marcel Blais to the newly created job of chief operating officer at its $576 million-asset Northeast Bank.
Mr. Blais had been the senior vice president of retail banking since joining the bank eight years ago.
Earlier in his 28-year banking career he had held jobs at Casco Northern Bank and Bank of Boston. (KeyCorp bought Casco Northern from BankBoston Corp. in 1995. Fleet Financial Group merged with BankBoston four years later.)
MIDWEST
UMB Financial Corp. of Kansas City, Mo., has hired senior vice presidents for its private banking and small-business banking divisions.
UMB said Dana Abraham will work to expand private banking services in all of the $7 billion-asset company's markets and will report to Brad Smith, the executive vice president of consumer services.
Ms. Abraham was a senior vice president of premier banking and investments at Bank of America, where she managed 16 private banking managers in Missouri, Iowa, and Kansas.
She has 19 years of private banking experience.
Katherine Hunter was named UMB's small-business banking head. Ms. Hunter was a vice president in the corporate banking division of Commerce Bank of Kansas City.
She has 22 years of banking experience, focusing on small-business banking for the last 17.
MIDDLE ATLANTIC
Union State Bank of Nanuet, N.Y., has made Lawrence D. Stewart its chief lending officer and promoted him from senior to executive vice president.
He has also been named to the bank's management and asset liability committees; he will remain on its management loan committee.
Mr. Stewart had been the senior commercial lending officer since joining the $2.9 billion-asset unit of U.S.B. Holding Co. Inc. in 1992 as a vice president. He was made a senior vice president five years later.
SOUTHEAST
BankUnited Financial Corp. of Coral Gables, Fla., has hired James R. Foster as its executive vice president of corporate finance.
During his career Mr. Foster has been an executive vice president and a chief financial officer at several large companies: the Deerfield Beach automotive company J.M. Family Enterprises Inc., the 13th-largest privately held company in the United States; the U.K. soccer apparel manufacturer Umbro International Ltd.; and Hay Group Inc., a Philadelphia compensation and benefits company with international operations.
Most recently he had been an organizational consultant at Right Management Consultants, a Philadelphia unit of Manpower Inc.
BankUnited has $9.9 billion of assets.
WEST
Southwest Community Bancorp of Carlsbad, Calif., has hired Roy Lewis as the chief credit officer at its $608 million-asset Southwest Community Bank.
Mr. Lewis, who has also been named an executive vice president, was the president and chief executive officer at Ramona National Bank, the $56 million-asset California bank he helped found in 2001.
Earlier in his 36 years of community banking experience he had been the chief credit officer for Redlands Centennial Bank (now 1st Centennial Bank), the CEO of Inland Empire National Bank in Riverside, and the president of Hood River County Bank in Oregon. (KeyBank bought Hood River in 1986.)
Commercial Capital Bank Inc. of Irvine, Calif., said James H. Leonetti would join the bank Nov. 16 as its chief financial officer and an executive vice president.
Mr. Leonetti was the global CFO of CB Richard Ellis of Los Angeles, one of the world's largest commercial real estate services companies, from 2000 until 2002.
He will succeed Christopher G. Hagerty, who is set to retire on the day before.
Before joining CB Richard Ellis, Mr. Leonetti had been the CFO of Long Beach Financial Corp., a specialty finance company in Orange.
Still earlier he had held various jobs, including controller and chief credit officer, at California Federal Bank (now Citibank West).
Most recently he had been the CFO of Watt Commercial Properties, a real estate services and development company in Santa Monica.
Commercial Capital Bank is a $5.1 billion-asset unit of Commercial Capital Bancorp.
