PACIFIC AVENUE

July 1982 – 1987

A Private Deck Over the Laundry Room
Through our Dining Room Window 

 

CORNER OF GOUGH & CLAY

August 1987 – 1994

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fine Dining

 

Parties

 

 

GARY’S 40th

November 1988

 

Few months later
A baby shower at Dianne’s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No haircuts
No maternity clothes
Just big designer stuff

Then there was Ben

 

First dinner out 7 days old
Perry’s Union Street with Pop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And… our Sylvia

She Loved Christmas… and Ben

 

Windmill Park
Ocean Beach

Ben’s “Closet”

 

Entertaining Paige in his crib

Lafayette Park
AKA Ben’s Park

 

 

 

 

 

Birthday bike

 

Ben’s 5th Birthday at Lafayette Park
June 1994

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SONOMA

With Lucy at D&L’s Gehricke Vineyard

Ben’s 2nd Birthday Sonoma Square
June 1991

Ben’s 4th Birthday at Viansa Winery
June 1993

Train Town 

 

Adventure from Northampton
Visiting Our Old Haunts

 

Cold NoCal Beach Day

 

BODEGA BAY

 

TIBURON

Lucy’s Wedding
With Gary & Doug

 

Crocker Bank
1982 – 1986

Moved to San Francisco from Manhattan. Got a job in the Latin America area of Crocker Bank. First office was in the original marble relic One Montgomery Street building. Soon moved to new high rise at Kearny & Post, 33rd Floor. Panoramic view of Alcatraz and the Bay. Open floor, no walls.

In 1986, a failing Crocker Bank was temporarily rescued by Midland Bank PLC. A major investment in Ecuador sunk both ships. Wells Fargo bought out Crocker. There was a farewall party where everyone was given lucite tombstones, literally shaped as real tombstones which read, Crocker RIP.

One day boxes appeared next to most desks on the floor. No HR announcement was made. I was one of the few who didn’t get the boxes and went on to work at Wells Fargo.

For those who were not hired by Wells Fargo, many went on to Bank of America.

Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN)
1986 – 1994

ABN was a global Dutch bank which at the time rivaled CitiCorp. It had a small group of international bankers in San Francisco. A former Crocker SVP joined ABN to manage an expanded presence. He brought several former Crocker people with him and hired me away from Wells Fargo. ABN was then on the corner of California & Kearny, a modern green building. We each got a Wyse desktop computer, huge things. We were mandated to take courses to learn to use them. First introduction to a computer for all of us.

The expanded group soon moved to the 27th Floor of the Bank of America building at 555 California, across the street. Again, open floor with panoramic views of Alcatraz and the Bay. We had great Dutch ex-pats rotate through our office every two years.

In October 1989,  we shook like crazy. Little 4-month old Ben was home with his new nanny Sylvia and Gary was across the GGB in Marin. Scary day of the Big Quake. Walked down 27 flights, glass all over the streets, no power. Finally got home to find everybody okay.

In 1990, ABN merged with another Dutch bank AMRO. I brought the new senior executives of ABN AMRO from Chicago and Amsterdam to meet my clients including Bechtel, McKesson, and Huntsman in Salt Lake City.

They were so impressed that when I left San Francisco in 1994 to move back to New England, they asked me to head up the Boston office which was struggling. I restructured and turned it around from 3% to 10% ROE.