Stanley Savage -- Security Pacific's New President Puts His Customers First

-- Name: Stanley Savage;

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-- Age: 45;

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-- Job: President, Security Pacific Bank Washington;

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-- Focus: Improve customer service and foster community involvement.;

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-- Quote: ``What attracted me was not the bank, but the opportunity to get into bonds.''

The year was 1970. Stanley Savage was 25 and out of the Navy, where he'd been an officer for two years.

Armed with a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Washington and some experience as a credit analyst for Westinghouse Credit Corp., he had two conflicting career fantasies: ``Move to Jackson Hole (in Wyoming) and become a ski bum,'' or go into the investment business.

Savage followed the second fantasy, never suspecting it would lead him to become - as he did last May 1 - president of Security Pacific Bank Washington, this state's second-largest bank.

``For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by investments,'' said Savage, who joined the National Bank of Commerce (later Rainier National Bank and later still Security Pacific) as a municipal-bond trader in 1972 after getting a master's degree in finance from the University of Southern California.

These days, the bond market is far down the list of Savage's concerns.

High on that list are:

-- Customer service: He thinks it must be improved;

-- Racial and ethnic diversity among employees: He wants the bank to ``create a multicultural environment'' to benefit employees, customers and communities;

-- Community reinvestment, for which Security Pacific has pledged $1 billion over the next 10 years: ``That is a personal goal of mine.''

Friends and associates say Savage is likely to be a popular bank president.

``Stan is a product of a culture in the bank that I like, that thinks of the community and the people in the community,'' said Seattle Mayor Norm Rice, who once managed corporate contributions and social policy for the bank.

``He has a way of seeing what needs to be done in the community and then taking a leadership position'' in reacting to those needs, said Judy Runstad, an attorney at Foster Pepper & Shefelman who has worked with Savage on corporate fund-raising projects.

``He was a very safe choice for Security Pacific,'' said a businesswoman who has known Savage since he joined the bank. ``He does not really have the look or the bearing of a chief executive officer or a chairman. But he's not going to make any waves or get them in trouble.''

Savage, a Seattle native who graduated from Roosevelt High School in the early 1960s, sees plenty of change ahead in the banking industry.

For one thing, he is convinced there are far more banks in the country now (more than 12,000) than there will be at the end of the decade.

Savage said he expects a continuation of the consolidation and the crossing of state boundaries that started in the 1980s - the very trends that turned independent Rainier National Bank into a unit of the nation's fifth-largest banking company.

``And the pace of consolidation will increase,'' he said.

Some executives enter a president's job or a CEO's job eager to talk about their agendas for organizational change. But if Savage has such an agenda, he won't admit it.

One reason could be that Savage has the second-in-command job at the bank, which is headed by John Getzelman, chairman and chief executive officer.

Savage - described by Runstad and others as ``a team player'' - says that is no problem. ``I have a lot to do here, and I don't get too hung up on titles or who reports to who,'' he said. ``People at the top of this company work as a team and everyone has important work and an important voice.''

Some of the most important work, as he sees it, is to improve Security Pacific's focus on customer service.

``The kind of leadership I want to provide is one that recognizes the importance of the customer,'' he said. ``We are working very hard at becoming more pro-active at serving customer needs.''

For example, the bank recently introduced a new kind of savings certificate that gives customers CD-like interest rates - up to 70 percent of the prime interest rate - on balances as low as $100.

The plan was not imposed from Security Pacific headquarters in Los Angeles. It was initiated in Seattle in response to inquiries from local customers.

If Savage accomplishes what he wants to, he said the bank in 1995 will still be in the same basic business but with new products and services. And basic products will be offered in new ways.

``I see us becoming far more consumer friendly,'' he said.

``One of the major changes will be hours,'' Savage said. ``We need to be open when people are able to do business with us.'' Last week, Security Pacific announced that a majority of its Washington branches will be open Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., three hours longer than those of other banks with Saturday service.

Savage's goals go beyond serving customers.

``We will grow in leadership in the communities we serve,'' he said, not just in business volume but ``in how we interact with those communities.''

Example: Art galleries - at least one. The bank has long harbored an extensive art collection in its Rainier Square headquarters building. Next month, the Security Pacific Gallery will open at Second Avenue and Seneca Street - a block from the site for the new Seattle Art Museum.

Example: Community reinvestment.

``As our profits grow, we want to increase what we give back'' to the communities, Savage said. That means not just giving money ``but also in how our people spend their time.

``There are a lot of people in this company who give a lot of their time to their communities, and this is a very important aspect of their lives. This is an example of the kind of leadership that I want to bring,'' Savage said.

Savage has personally been involved in a wide range of civic and professional organizations. He is on the boards of the Seattle Repertory Theatre, the Seattle Art Museum, Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts and the Bush School.

Savage - and people who remember him from when he joined the bank 18 years ago - had little inkling that he would have such a future.

Fresh out of graduate school, Savage had applied for jobs at Bank of America and three national brokerage houses.

When a family friend told Savage of the municipal-bond-trader's job at National Bank of Commerce in Seattle, he jumped at the chance to work in his home town.

An acquaintance who remembers his move to the bank said Savage was known as ``bright, and a neat, conservative dresser . . . but I never would have guessed that he would go so far.''

``What attracted me was not the bank, but the opportunity to get into bonds,'' Savage said.

After a few years in the bank's investment department, Savage said he decided to get into ``the mainstream of what banks really do'' - corporate lending. Savage became an account officer, making loans to various customers, including Boeing.

He later started the bank's public-finance group, now a separate subsidiary that underwrites municipal bonds, and later was in charge of the bank's asset-liability management department.

``I got to watch him as he moved up from one position to another,'' said Rice. ``He always did it with concern for other people.''

Savage's succession up the corporate ladder brought a series of titles: assistant vice president in 1975, vice president and regional manager of the national banking group in 1977, senior vice president and manager of commercial banking in 1983, and executive vice president and head of the treasury and capital markets division in 1986.

A year later, he was put in charge of merchant banking, and he was named vice chairman of the bank in 1988. He also holds the titles of president of Security Pacific Bancorp. Northwest and is chairman of Security Pacific Bank Oregon.

Savage's success suggests an interesting question: When you're 45 years old and the company president, where do you go from there?

``That's a good question, and I probably don't have a good answer for you,'' Savage said. ``There is plenty of challenge right here.''

Profile appears weekly in the Business Monday section of The Seattle Times.