Former employees look to continue the legacy
WILSHIRE BLVD. — When it comes to managing his money, Bill Crookston doesn’t trust anyone more than Dick Lawrence and his team of tellers at First Private Bank & Trust.
“These people know you. They take care of you,” said Crookston, who also owns stock in the company. “With the larger banks, you’re just a number to them, hopefully one with a bunch of zeros behind it.
Here, you walk in and people are so friendly. They call you by name. It’s just really personal.
“They know how to run a local bank.”
Perhaps that’s because Lawrence and several of his staff members are alumni of Santa Monica Bank, an institution in the city that handled many residents’ finances following its opening in 1928.
Founded by the Austin family, the bank was run locally until it and seven other branches across Los Angeles were acquired by Western Cancorp in 1997. The location eventually became a US Bank.
Lawrence, who worked at Santa Monica Bank from 1982 to ‘83, said many customers felt as if they had lost a member of the family when the bank was purchased.
“People really missed the relationship they had with the employees,”Lawrence said.
What they also missed was the trust they had in employees like Lawrence who were intimately familiar with not only the customers’ finances and family life, but also about the local economy and the needs of business owners.
Lawrence, a past president of the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club and the YMCA, relocated to Encino State Bank, which ultimately became First Private Bank & Trust, a member of the Boston Private Wealth Management Group, a national enterprise of independently operated financial services firms with over $30 billion in assets.
Once at First Private, Lawrence began to rebuild the relationships he had forged.
“We are not a destination bank,” Lawrence said.“People just don’t walk in and set up an account. They are referred to us by friends, colleagues. They know they can come here and the tellers will call them by name, there’ll be no lines and they’ll be treated right.You definitely feel like you are a part of the family.
“You work with families from the very beginning, helping them to build their wealth in the early years as they raise a family, and then you help them transfer that wealth when they get in their senior years,” Lawrence added. “You’re really covering all the bases.”
To make sure they are providing the best possible service, First Private recently added a wealth management and trust department.
“Santa Monicans want someone who is rooted, and with Dick they get that,” said Gary Helme, the executive vice president and chief fiduciary officer at First Private. “They get the personal touch along with the resources of Boston Private that include the best investment advisors to make sure clients have a diverse portfolio.”
Helme said the bank is looking for those with anywhere from $1 million to $10 million, a group which he said has been neglected by larger banks looking for more money.
“With wealth management it is really all about trust,” Helme said. “Dick is very active in the community. He’s a familiar face and we hope that when people come in to our bank they have the same feeling they got when they were customers at Santa Monica Bank. We want to be the place Santa Monicans turn.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 23, 2006. Read the original PDF.