Kenneth E. Buhrmaster, a top executive at the $270 million-asset 1st National Bank of Scotia in New York for 60 years before retiring in 2005, died Sunday. He was 92.
Mr. Buhrmaster was president of the New York State Bankers Association in 1974 and 1975 and one of the founders of the Independent Bankers Association of New York State. Hugh Farley, the New York state senator, eulogized him in a local newspaper report as "a banking giant."
Mr. Buhrmaster began his banking career in 1945 as a director at what was then Glenville Bank. He became its president in 1952. In 1962, he worked with General Electric Co. to replace passbook savings accounts with computer statements, making the bank one of the first in the country to do so, said his grandson, John H. Buhrmaster, the fourth-generation president of 1st National Bank of Scotia.
