MIDWEST
First Merchants Bank in Muncie, Ind., has hired John Rockey to supervise its new office in Marsh, Ind. He is responsible for all branch operations and employees.
Mr. Rockey has 20 years of banking experience, including jobs as branch manager for Farmers Bank in Frankfort, Ind., and vice president and installment loan manager at American State Bank in Sheridan, Ind.
First Merchants Bank, with $780 million of assets, is owned by First Merchants Corp., a $1.5 billion-asset company.
Cole Taylor Bank in Wheeling, Ill., has hired Joan L. Ackerman for the newly created post of chief information officer. In addition to information systems and computer operations, she is responsible for e-commerce initiatives.Ms. Ackerman was vice president of secure Internet infrastructure and messaging at Harris Bank in Chicago, where she had worked for five years. Harris is owned by Bank of Montreal.
Previously, she was director and principle consultant at SoftSwitch/Lotus Development in Chicago, where she was responsible for creating educational labs for hands-on Internet security training.
Ms. Ackerman started her career in technology in 1978. She has 20 years of experience in business strategy development, system development, and applications.
Cole Taylor Bank, the largest independent bank in the Chicago area, has $2.2 billion of assets.
MIDDLE ATLANTICHudson Valley Bank in Yonkers, N.Y., has hired Gary Rauch as senior commercial portfolio manager in the lending department and Laurel Magruder as relationship manager in the general business segment. Each also was named vice president.
Mr. Rauch is responsible for an assigned segment of the loan portfolio business. He reports to Edward Harvey, senior vice president of commercial lending.
He was formerly a vice president and portfolio manager team leader in Connecticut for First Union National Bank, where he had worked more than a year. Before that, he was a senior credit officer at National Westminster in New York City. He has 30 years of banking and financial experience.
Ms. Magruder is responsible for managing a loan portfolio of existing customers and developing new commercial loans and deposits.
She was a vice president, originating and underwriting commercial loans, at First Bank in West Des Moines, Iowa, where she had worked for seven years successively as a loan administrator, marketing coordinator, and branch manager. Earlier, she was a management trainee at Accent Service Co., a collection firm in West Des Moines.
Hudson Valley Bank has $1.2 billion of assets.
WESTCalifornia Independent Bancorp and its Feather River State Bank hired Robert J. Lampert to be executive vice president and chief operating officer of both entities. He also succeeds Annette Bertolini, who recently decided to take early retirement, as chief financial officer for the bank and holding company.
Mr. Lampert was executive vice president of strategic operations in the commercial lending division at the Money Store in Sacramento, Calif., where he previously was a vice president of finance and strategic planning and later a vice president of multifamily lending in the home equity division. Before joining Money Store, he had been CEO of EPI Leasing Co., a subsidiary of Feather River State Bank that has ceased operations. He has 18 years of experience in financial services and financial management.
Feather River, with $297 million of assets, and its parent are headquartered in Yuba City, Calif.
Bank of the Sierra in Porterville, Calif., has hired Andy Seeto for the newly created post of vice president of Small Business Administration lending in the bank's Fresno, Calif., office.He reports directly to Jerry Hawkins, vice president and manager of the SBA loan portfolio.
Mr. Seeto was an SBA lender for the past year at Goleta National Bank in Goleta, Calif. He has nine years of experience in finance, including two years as financial resource manager at the Tulare County Economic Development Corp. in Visalia, Calif.
Bank of the Sierra, with $480 million of assets, operates 16 branches, five real estate centers, three agricultural lending credit centers, and a bank card center.
