PACIFIC AVENUE
July 1982 – 1987
A Private Deck Over the Laundry Room
Through our Dining Room Window
CORNER OF GOUGH & CLAY
August 1987 – 1994
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.
